


The seven days of the death

by Suryallee



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Horror, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Psychic Violence, dark themes, ghost story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:48:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suryallee/pseuds/Suryallee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘It is Better to love wisely as too hotly; because the latter will only lead to ruin and tears whereas the former will bear fruit and happiness.’<br/>Old sayings…<br/>Ghost story in Middle Earth Stile with a dark outlook on Dwarven customs dealing with their dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And so, it beginns...

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the kind comments and well wishes when I was sick! I wish I could hug you all, you people Rock! I will update my stories shortly, a new chapter for CHAD is already at my Betas to be looked through.  
> This story deals with darker themes and was written from me when I was sick. Beware, the warnings are there for a reason and Fili is not the nice Fili we know and love in this fiction!

The seven days of the death   
' It is Better to love wisely as too hotly; because the latter will only lead to ruin and tears whereas the former will bear fruit and happiness.’   
Old sayings… 

Part one, and so, it begins…

Fili was watching the enfolding scene with Bard and Thranduil with trepidation. He had feared already that something like this would be happening once they had taken back the mountain. The look in his uncles eyes had been unmistakable. Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, the next King under the mountain had fallen victim to the curse on the house of Durin the Deathless. 

He had been tainted with the same curse that had felled his grandfather Thror; goldfever, the dragon-sickness, greed, whatever you wanted to call it.   
Groaning the heir apparent rubbed his weary face and retreaded from the balcony without to look after the receding group of elves and men. He did not need to look to know that this would dissolve into a lot more trouble as they all could deal with in the very end. It was their burglar that worried Fili more right this moment. Bilbo, who Fili believed to have the Arkenstone hidden somewhere on his person or elsewhere in the mountain. 

Fili had seen the Hobbit figed around and his guilty looks made it easy for the clever Dwarf to connect the dots in his brain. Nothing else made any sense under the given circumstances, Bilbo had to have the accursed stone. They had found it nowhere in the massive hoard and search, they did. Day and night, Thorin was relentless in his want to have the stone once again in his grasp. 

He knew that Bilbo only followed an advice given to him from Gandalf, still, Bilbo was kind of betraying Thorin with this and as much Fili thought that Bilbo and Gandalf had it right, the follow up would endanger Bilbo to an extend that the young Dwarf was not willing to let happen to Bilbo. He didn’t know what their Halfling was planning exactly but whatever it was that his little witty head was currently cocking out, it was too dangerous for Bilbo and Fili would stop it! Settling his mouth into a firm line, Fili walked down the steps from the archers balconies that lead to the former entrance hall of Erebor. His sharp blue eyes never leaving Bilbo’s small frame that hurried down the same staircase in the distance down. 

Bilbo was aware of it that Fili had taken to the weird hobby to watch him over the entire time that they had traveled. 

He couldn’t exactly pinpoint when it had started but suspected that it had already the moment he had opened his green door to the brothers. In the beginning it had unnerved and unsettled the Hobbit greatly. Now, it made his task to do only more problematic… oh how Bilbo wished for it that Gandalf was here! The wizard surely could have shaken Thorin out of whatever had taken hold on the King and most of the other Dwarrow’s. 

The only ones that he could see that hadn’t been taken with the Goldfever were Fili, Kili, Bofur and Balin. The others were in various states of it, ranking from a slight affliction as in Dwalin’s case to a heavy contamination as in Nori’s and Thorin’s. With the last having the worst case of them all. Gandalf had warned Bilbo about something like that happening once they all saw the masses of Gold in Erebor. He had foreseen the trouble in the waiting, had even told Bilbo about the affliction of Dwarves to Gold and masses of jewels. 

He shortly played with the thought to use his ring to vanish on the heir of Thorin, to hide from his sharp eyes that Bilbo could even now boring into his back! 

It still unsettled him to be the sole recipient of the blazing gaze of Fili, prince under the mountain. 

What did he want from Bilbo anyways?! Bilbo wasn’t certain but then again, he was only a simple Hobbit that wanted his home and his friends, preferably, safe, alive and sound in mind while he walked back to the Shire! Fili Durin on the other hand, did not play fair! He made Bilbo nervous and flighty and most of all, he confused the hell out of the poor hobbit with his unusual behavior. 

It had become apparent to Bilbo that he was watched after the incident with the Troll’s.   
Now, that had been a nasty business, Bilbo didn’t think that he would ever forget the stench of those creatures, ever! It took him a while to realize it that Fili had actually watched him covertly for a while longer already. Once Bilbo got that thought, he had been shocked. And the way the heir did it was unsettling the Hobbit. Sometimes, Bilbo caught Fili with a look in his eyes that was scorching and filled with so many hidden and unnamed emotions. 

He did not know what to make of the Dwarves apparent weird behavior. 

While walking Bilbo remembered one particular moment very clearly and shuddered at the memory. 

They had reached the bottom of the Carrock at nightfall. All too tired to do much more as to fall down where they stood, most drifted off into an uneasy sleep as soon as they hit the floor. Bilbo had taken refugee next to a large rock. It shielded him a bit from the harsh wind and the cold of the night. No one dared to make a fire, not after having just escaped Azog and his goons. 

He heard the telltale sound of Dwarvish boots hit the gravel when someone walked over to his place. At first, Bilbo had thought it could be Bofur but when the body of the Dwarf in question hit the earth the grunt told Bilbo otherwise. Opening one eye tiredly he saw right at Fili’s profile in the half-darkness. The young heir of Thorin rubbed his eyes tiredly. 

Clearly he was outworn and just as tired as the rest of them all. 

For a long moment no one said a word. Then Fili suddenly stopped with his gazing into the distance in silence. “You are still awake?” Bilbo opted for a tired nod. Somehow he couldn’t fall asleep. He blamed it at the adrenaline still coursing through his blood and the cold, unforgiving stone he huddled against. 

“No, I mean yes I am still awake and cannot find sleep. Too much happened in a too short amound of time, I guess. Makes it harder to find rest.” Next to Bilbo, Fili nodded slowly. “Same here. I cannot find rest before I have fully calmed down. Too many close calls for the day for my taste!” Looking around, Bilbo saw Kili had huddled up next to his uncle. Already fast asleep. Even Thorin seemed to have fallen asleep already with the young Dwarf practically cuddled up in his side. Bilbo suppressed a tired giggle at the sight and next to him he felt Fili move until he saw the Dwarf give the couple the same look. Amused gazes meet and both broke out in silent chuckles. 

“Ah, yes Kili is a bit scared right now I guess?” Bilbo laughed lightly. “A bit? He coddles Thorin like a fauntling would a teddy bear!” That statement lead to a new bout of chuckles between them. Fili finally nodded sagely, lips quirking up in his mirth. “Not that uncle terribly seem to mind him doing so… he has always done this hugging thing when he was scared in the past. I gues we all got used to his quirks.” He gave Bilbo a solemn look. 

“How are you? Any injuries?” 

Bilbo shook his head tiredly. “No, just a bit sore feeling. A few scratches and bruises but nothing dangerous, I assure you. A good nights sleep and I should be fine again, you?” Fili shrugged. “One of my shoulders took a hit and I have many scratches and bruises but luckily nothing broken and neither do I have cuts from their cursed blades. Fili got a deep wound on his left arm, Oin saw to it already. Otherwise, I think we got away damn lucky.” 

Bilbo nodded and agreed softly to that. a new shiver joined the few that had run over him since he had dropped down near the rock. Bilbo was feeling cold and he tried to huddle deeper into his ruined waistcoat. “Cold?” Fili’s voice cut through the night sounds again and Bilbo nodded once more. “Yes, terribly so I fear. This weather is not exactly Hobbit friendly.” Next to him, Fili broke out in a bout of amused chuckles at Bilbo's words. Before Bilbo knew what was going on he felt the Dwarf sidle over to him and envelope him into the warmth of his embrace. 

Fili simply ignored the soft protests of Bilbo that this wasn’t proper and continued to enfold the slighter body into his embrace until Bilbo was settled in his lap while Fili’s back was to the stone. Huffing and puffing also did not work with the infuriating blond. Fili did not let go, no matter what Bilbo tried. In the end, Bilbo gave it up, his heart wasn’t really into it anyways. And the Dwarf was Warm! So much in fact that he somewhat worked like a furnace in Bilbo’s back that soothed the chills away. 

He fell asleep right after he had stopped struggling. To tired to complain about the hand in his hair that seem to pet him soothingly.   
After that night at the stone outcrop, Fili took to it to sleep near Bilbo until the debacle in Mirkwood and even there the Dwarf had made sure that Bilbo slept near the bars of his cell. Had guarded Bilbo so he would not be seen from the Elves on their patrols and had shared his food with the poor hobbit. 

The odd looks had increased in that time. 

He had been the only one to see the ring and Bilbo using it too. It had taken Fili not long to figure out that Bilbo used something to make him invisible. He had given the ring one look and had recoiled quickly. “That thing is not a normal ring, Bilbo!” eying it carefully Fili had not dared to touch it, despise the clear want in his eyes. Bilbo had fearfully watched the battle that seem to rage inside of the Dwarf before he had turned around to face his cell wall instead of the ring. 

“Bilbo, put it away, please. This… thing… is like the rings I heard about as a Dwarfling. Like the seven rings of my kin, forget by Celebrimbor and his smiths of old. Just… ten times worse?” He gave the Hobbit a haunted look that had Bilbo fast put the ring away. “What do you mean, Fili?”   
Fili heaved air into his lungs before he crouched down in front of the bars. 

“I think it is an evil thing and if we would not need it to escape I would ask you to throw it into the next fire chasm we run across! Magic rings have never brought something good and will never do so either. All of the rings in this world are cursed from Sauron. You better use it wisely, my friend and do not show it to anyone else either! Especially not uncle. Not that I do not trust them, it is more that I do not trust that, thing!”   
In the end, Bilbo had promised to Fili that he would keep it secret and not short after they had escaped.

His hand touched the ring in his pocket calmly. 

He needed to get away from the overprotective Fili to do what he must. Bilbo knew as much. He suspected that Fili knew that Bilbo had taken the arkenjewel and now tried to stop him. with one last look over his shoulder the Hobbit resolved himself and slipped the ring on the same moment he slipped around the next corner. 

Fili saw Bilbo fiddle with something in his pocket just a second too late to react. 

Running down the last distance he rushed around the corner that Bilbo had rounded only a moment before to see… nothing. Not even footprints in the dust gave Bilbo away, somehow the hobbit had avoided making them. As light-footed as Bilbo was it that was to expect. His fist hit the wall next to Fili with an assortment of many interesting curses in Khuzdul while Fili’s face morphed into a grimace of suppressed anger and hopelessness. Turning with another curse, Fili strode resolutely down another corridor after some moments of heavy thinking. 

‘Looks like I have to resort to my last of plans’, the Dwarf thought defeated. 

It wasn’t something he did look forward to and yet at the same moment it settled a darkly arche in his chest, Fili let a sigh escape his lips. He would have preferred it to not to have to do to such an maneuver on Bilbo but as the things lay, his greatest worries and fears were about to come true as well as that Bilbo left him absolutely no choice as to do this to him. 

While he walked Fili passed Kili and Bofur on his way. The two fell in step with him silently. 

His thoughts turned back to the day that unusual couple had been found out by Thorin…

It had been on the way down the Carrock that his uncle had finally caught on. What resulted into a shouting match between, Kili, Thorin and Bilbo. The Halfling had known and even encouraged the two to find hope in each other. Had helped them to hide from Fili’s uncles gaze so they could sneak off to have some quite moments to themselves, had even taken the blame for their disappearing acts more than one time without an complain. 

It had endeared him to Fili deeply as well as too the family of Bofur. 

All they had wanted was to be happy, sadly Thorin needed a shouting match between Bilbo and himself to see reason. 

“If I had known that your reputation and lineage is more important to you as the happiness of one of your nephews, I would have staid home or have that Azog have you! Are you really that callous to not see the love that lays between the two?” Bilbo had snorted at the gapping that Thorin had done after those words, a cynical sound that soo did not seem to fit with the normally friendly creature at all. Another snort escaped Bilbo’s lips when he walked away from Thorin as far as possible. Bilbo then had given a look full of such distaste over his shoulder at Thorin that Thorin had reeled back from it as if the Hobbit had physically slapped him and after a while he had halfheartedly carved in. 

Ever since, Bofur and Kili had been inseparable. 

Where one was, the other was not far from to find. A truly bonded pair if Fili had ever seen one in his short life. It seemingly did soften down Thorin too since he began to make remarks on it that Kili and Bofur behaved as such lovers should, even reluctantly acknowledging that they held in the boundaries of Dwarrow sensibilities of what was proper behavior and what was not. 

In the end he had officially approved of the pair in Laketown and it was left at that. 

Rounding around a corner that lead to the long walkway to the royal rooms that the brothers and Bofur now used, Fili moved like a ghost along the long hallway. 

He had always feared that their quest would probably end in a disaster. Fili had these foreboding dreams all through his youth in Ered Luin, now he was certain that something awful would be happening soon. Gritting his teeth, Fili stopped shortly to ball his fists until his brothers hand gripped his shoulder. It was enough to shake the heir of Erebor out of his anger again. He shortly laid his hand onto that of his brothers before he walked quietly on. Another memory came to his mind. One that was of an much happier note as the last. 

He had simply believed that he would have more time… 

The door looked cheerily green, even in the darkness of the night that Kili and he arrived at it. 

They had searched for hours for the right one! Gandalf truly could have been more forthcoming with the directions given. Both looked at each other and shrugged. When Bilbo opened the door, his normally friendly and cute face set into a grimace, Fili felt his heart stop a beat or two… only to beat suddenly much faster as before. Outward he had let nothing show on his face. Had been the perfect picture of indifference when Bilbo tried to close the door into their faces. 

Inwardly, Fili had laughed and laughed and laughed. 

He had wanted to dance and sing even! The more the evening grew late, the more he had simply wanted to snatch Bilbo up under one arm and bring him to his mother to keep him safe there until he returned. Of course, that was a silly thought… but tempting none the less.   
Fili had early on known that the quest needed all of his awareness to survive it in one piece. He had no time to romance the Halfling. 

And not the freedom for it either, he was The Heir apparent after all! 

With that, came responsibility and many troubles his younger brother was thankfully spared from. On their adventure was simply no time to defy his uncle that much or to stain their group relationships with the troubles that came with having two headstrong feuding Durin’s in their middle. It would have tested the boundaries too much and would have destabilized their group in the end. 

But once this was over and done with, once he was free to do as he wanted, Fili had sworn silently to himself that he would be after Bilbo with all his might! 

And if he had to resort to it to lock him into the damnable treasury of Erebor to hinder him to go back to the Shire, he would have done so. In getting their One’s, Dwarrow were impossibly inventive if needed. And already back than, in Bilbo’s home Fili had felt the beginning stirrings of his inherited possessiveness and need to keep Bilbo to himself grow with each moment that he did look at the almost tiny creature that fluttered around with adorably flailing arms. 

Over the course of the next hours, he had been in hell. 

Hoping that Bilbo would come and hoping at the same time that he would not, had warred inside of his Dwarvish heart. He had on one side, wanted his one to never leave his side again selfishly and on the other hand had wanted him to be safe and sound. When Bilbo finally showed up, he had collected his betting earnings because he had bet on Bilbo coming, together with Kili, Bofur and Gandalf as the only ones, and tried not to look too relieved.   
The Troll accident had left him shaking, the following madrun through the wilderness, exhausted and worried to the bone. 

What if Bilbo had stumbled? Been caught in a spot without help? Been ripped apart by the Trolls? 

In Rivendell he had not let him out of his sight for more than the time it took Thorin, Balin and Gandalf to speak with Lord Elrond. The wizard had taken Bilbo along with him to it. Fili had not liked it, his possessiveness had already grown too deep to take the risk to loose sight of Bilbo. And that Bilbo gazed at the elves all the time with that awed look of his had not made it easier for Fili to stop himself from simply snatching Bilbo up and carry him out of the blasted elven realm to stop him from it either. 

He wanted Bilbo to look at him, only at Fili with that adoration in his eyes. 

Unsurprisingly, this had not exactly endeared the elves to Fili either way and in the end Fili had been glad when they had to leave.   
Of course his brother had somehow known from the beginning on. 

Kili had made certain that Bilbo spend time with the brothers and later with Bofur and them. The toymaker too had taken a shine in the Hobbit and Fili was sure, if his brother had not happened that Bofur had tried his luck on Bilbo for sure. But once Kili had begun to spin his net around the Miner and toymaker, Bofur had been lost to the younger Durin. 

After all, who could escape the famous charms of his family unscathed? 

No one Fili had ever heard about and he had shrugged it off. 

Well, if you did not count in his uncle into the list of charmers, that was it. Thorin could not seduce a fly into letting him alone if needed, let alone the Halfling into reacting less jumpy around Thorin. What maybe had to do with the pesky fact that the King was simply awful to the poor little fellow all the time? 

Luckily even the thickheaded uncle of Fili slowly learned his lections and warmed somewhat up to Bilbo, what in turn pleased Fili. Still, Bilbo kept his guard up around Thorin for as long the journey took. That also pleased Fili to note, since he did not want Bilbo near his uncle too much! 

He wanted Bilbo for himself and knew only to well about the magnetism that was Thorin Oakenshield. 

He stopped in frontage of an old oak and steel door that was leading to his new chambers. 

Opening the old lock with the key he now wore around his neck, he stepped in without to close the door again. The other two did not follow him in, they rather took to stand guard outside while he walked through the room to the door to his new bedroom. He vanished inside from their sight.   
Inside, Fili went over to the trunk that sat on the end of his bed and kneeled. Opening it he begun to rummage around in his few belongings carelessly until his hand touched an familiar small box of steel. He grabbed it and closed the trunk again. Then he rose with a grunt and walked around the trunk to sit onto his unmade bed. 

This Steelcase held something that Fili always held dear and near to him, no matter where he went in his life. 

Like all Dwarrow’s, Fili had begun his workings on his courting gifts early in his life. Being always on the move since he was born, never really having a home to call their own, Durin’s folk had learned to keep their dearest treasures close to their bodies all the time as not to loose them accidentally when they had to move quickly. Inside of the smallish box was something that was more valuable to Fili as the fabled Arkenstone of his forefathers.   
When he opened it, the top revealed a necklace inside. 

The links were made of Mithril and rare white gold, it made no sound when he took it out of the case to hold it up into the light of one of the rare windows that had survived intact in the mountain after Smaug had come. This rooms had once belonged to Frerin, the brother of Thorin and his mother. Deceased when the Dragon had taken their home. He had died in the fights of the gate long before Fili had been born. 

Now, the window let in just enough light of the late evening sun to let the metal of the Necklace shine and sparkle in the light like water in sunlight. It reflected the light onto the walls and had Fili loose the hard edge of his sharp smile. On the thin but still much masculine looking band hung exactly three beads. Two, had always hung on it, made by his hands once he was old enough and skilled enough to make them. 

Both were made of the stone that Fili had chosen to represent him at a young age, sapphire. 

The braids in his hair told the world around him that he was an accomplished silversmith and gem cutter in Dwarrow society. Once he had mastered the latter, he had worked on the beads and once he mastered the first, Fili had made the collar by his own hands. Actually it had been one of his master pieces, that necklace and the Gem’s had been another when he had ended his apprenticeship under the best tutors of the Blue Mountain and beyond.   
Each of the line of Durin choose a craft or two to master it when young. 

In Kili’s case he had learned gem-cutter too and engraver so Fili’s and his trades would not overlap too much and had accomplished both with the usual grace of his line; as a master in the end, like Fili had excelled in his chosen trades before Kili. 

Both were accomplished blacksmith’s too, since Thorin had taught his sisters children well in his own chosen trade in their youth. Never forgetting that they needed to know as much as he could teach them to survive until they had their home back. From their mother both had learned the art on negotiating and it often even showed when both prince’s combined their efforts in gaining something through it. 

But all of that would not help Fili with Bilbo and he knew that too. When it came down to the Hobbit Fili had soon learned that Bilbo could be more stubborn as the famous rock in the legends! He chuckled lightly, his Hobbit would have made a fine Dwarrow if born as one. 

The beads were made of sapphires. 

One was of the telling shade of the deep royal blue of the line of Durin and carved and cut in the design that marked the beat as Fili’s and as a courting bead of the Dwarf to any other Dwarrow’s that would ever look at it. The other was of a golden coloring. He had searched long and hard to find that particular color under all the ones presented to Fili once he made it known that he wanted one to make his courting beads. 

They were extremely rare and this one glowed practically golden in any light as if it possessed one of its own. 

That bead was carved so it was showing only Fili’s chosen personal design and marked any who wore it as his chosen. The last bead was new, not in existence itself but in the way it was cut and all. He had found the stone on one of his excursions into the mines in the iron mountains and had kept it ever since out of a point he had not known. 

When Fili had meet Bilbo, he had known why. 

The almost greenish-blue stone too was a sapphire and also a rare colored one at that as his own stones were. Somehow, once he saw the Hobbit, he had associated him with green and growing things and nature itself. It had befitted Bilbo in Fili’s eyes and so he had cut away on the stone on the journey when he was certain that no one was around to look upon his work or to disturb him. He needed silence and solitude to work at his best.   
Kili, understanding what was going on in his brothers head, had aided him whenever he could. Had even stood guard when needed and had distracted the others including their uncle all the time from what Fili was doing. 

It had paid off a thousand times! 

His blue gaze looked at it with a sad smile on his lips. The stone had the final form of a flower. It was an impossibly detailed rendering of a several Primroses, looking like a delicate band or crown and the flower meant as far Fili did know it, nothing less as; Eternal Love. 

He had needed weeks to carve them out of the stone and more to bring them to shine later on. 

One time, a goblin nearly found the case in his cloths until he was dislodged from Fili in his horror to maybe loose these important gems and the necklace to them like that. Later, he had checked in broad daylight that they all were still with him in one piece. No one had commended on it, all feeling the same and had done so too while looking away from each other respectfully. Not even the elves of Mirkwood had dared to take those cases or adornments from the Dwarrow, they had known that much to leave them with them after making sure that they held no possible weapons. 

Fili gnashed his teeth and bore with their snooping in his most personal affairs, but would never forget about this in the future to come. 

That blasted elf, Tauriel, looked mightily impressed at the fine working, whistled even lowly and had, luckily, let it slide without anymore comments as; ‘He has no weapons, leave that case with him for the sake of the Valar and do not touch it!’. 

Putting it back into the Steelcase, Fili unlocked his legs and stood again to stretch one last time before he briskly walked out of his rooms again. 

He had his Hobbit to catch before Bilbo managed it to leave and that, most likely, for good. 

Outside his rooms, the two others followed him like shadows again. Fili did not stop in the treasury and neither did he spare a look for anything else or anyone on his way down to the old entrance of the Mountain Kingdom. He simply walked on, silently avoiding to draw attention to himself. His companions did the same. Once being in the old hall before the doors, Fili stepped into the deep shadows and waited for Bilbo to come this way.   
Why he was so certain that Bilbo would take this route to make it out of the mountain was a simple logical conclusion. There was no other way out as trying to climb down from one of the highly situated balconies and since Bilbo was absolutely not found of heights in either way, he would have to use the barely restored door of the grand entrance hall to Erebor to escape. Fili had noted their Burglars fear of heights early on in the quest and had made certain that Bilbo did not got exposed to them often. 

Besides, Dori and Gloin would guard the old archers platforms tonight and so, that way was literally out of question for Bilbo to use. Even invincible.   
The absolute silence in the hall made it a tad easier to pinpoint Bilbo when he finally appeared two hours of waiting later. Seeing his uncertainly, Fili knew that the Hobbit feared to be ambushed and made himself known after a while of observing the still visible Hobbit calmly for a short while. He did not know whenever he would see Bilbo again and if it even would be in this life. 

As expected, Bilbo jumped when he saw Fili suddenly appear out of the dark shadows that had aided the Prince’s hiding from sight. He saw out of the corner of his eyes Kili and Bofur move back the way to ensure that the two of them would be alone. Bofur even waved at Bilbo with a sad smile while Kili nodded at the Hobbit. It seemed to calm Bilbo if not confuse him. 

Fili had expected as much. 

“I was sure that you would take this way instead to try to steal the key from Thorin to escape through the hidden door.” Fili’s voice was calm, too calm and Bilbo did know that too from the looks of it. The Hobbit gulped and stepped a bit backwards.   
Fili sighed and crossed his arms over his wide chest. 

Stepping up until he was two steps away from Bilbo he made certain to not spook the Hobbit even more. “I know that you have the stone and I can muse about it what you plan to do, Bilbo” He told the poor Hobbit carefully than he crocked his head just so to the side that Fili looked contemplative to Bilbo. “I will not even hinder you, Bilbo. It would be a futile try and I know that you can be more stubborn as a Dwarrow when it comes down to it. Allow me one question thought?” 

Bilbo gave him a contemplating look back. he looked mightily sorry to Fili who tried to take in every feature of Bilbo while he tried to make the most of the short time he had with the Hobbit. Finally Bilbo nodded slowly. “By all means do ask, but why do you not stop me if I may ask? One would think you, your brother and Bofur would do so. I am a bit confused to say at last.” 

Fili only smiled sadly at that. 

“I knew since the beginning of this journey that not all would go the way we all dreamed it to be, Bilbo. To be honest, I have always feared that it would end this or another way.” He breathed in deeply. As near as Fili now stood to Bilbo, he could easily smell the scent of the Halfling. Honey, grass and something that was simply, Bilbo to Fili’s senses. 

“Although I cannot call it a good thing what you plan, I will not hinder you. Seeing that it is most likely the only thing that will make him see reason again, but be warned,” He leaned in closely to Bilbo before he continued and gave the hobbit a grave look of veiled warning of the dangers to come, “This can cost you your life in the worst case, and will end in banishment in the better. Seeing how gold-sick my uncle already is, he will need a while to recover enough to see reason, I fear.” 

Another sigh left Fili’s lips and for a moment he closed his eyes in his helplessness to prevent this all from happening.   
To his surprise he felt Bilbo suddenly step closer and enfold him in a earnestly meant hug. He had always marveled at Bilbo’s capacity for being compassionate over others that he cared for and Fili had known that the small Hobbit did care for Kili and him in his own way. He still could not help himself from hugging Bilbo back while he could. 

Leaning forward, Fili buried his nose in the curls of the slightly smaller man and closed his eyes again. 

“I am soo sorry, Fili!” 

Bilbo’s voice sounded muffled from where he had buried his face into Fili’s mantle. The prince chuckled mirthlessly. 

“Don’t be! I know that Gandalf goaded you on to do such if certain events took place, that old shrewd! But that is unimportant, just promise me to be careful, ok?” The hobbit head nodded against his chest where it still pressed into Fili and the Dwarf suddenly wished he could hide Bilbo away somewhere from this all. 

“Will you not consider another way at least?” He knew, his question was only formality and Bilbo seemingly knew it too because a unhappy laugh escaped him. 

They staid silent after that, just holding each other for long minutes. Without to let go on Bilbo, Fili put one hand into his pocked and removed the case. He opened it silently and simply held it there for a moment. Only staring at the necklace and the Beads. He knew that Bilbo wore no jewelry or even a chain around his neck so, when he finally took it out of the case all Fili had to do was to lean back just slightly so to slip the long chain of mithril over the head of the surprised Hobbit to place it around Bilbo’s neck. 

“Wha… Fili?” 

The Dwarf gave Bilbo a soft and open smile. Something seemed to settle within Fili seeing Bilbo with his courting necklace around his pale neck. Even if the poor hobbit had no idea of what it meant to the Dwarrow at his side. Bilbo eyed the chain and Bead’s curiously before his wide eyed gaze went back to Fili. 

“I… I can’t take this! Why..?” His poor attempts on refusing the gift where wished away from Fili with putting a finger to Bilbo’s lips. Efficiently silencing the Hobbit. 

“Hush. It is mine to give since I made them and all I ask of you is to promise me something, Master Burglar.” He grinned winningly at the befuddled Hobbit that finally gave him a defeated look in return. 

“You will not let me change your mind, don’t you, Fili?” The Dwarf shook his head one time, the smile still playing around his lips. 

“No.” Fili simply and with a huff, Bilbo finally carved and nodded softly. Meanwhile Fili ended his sentence in his mind with, ‘after all, it was made for you’.  
“What do you want me to promise, Fili.” His eyes looked weary and sad and it broke Fili’s heart to see Bilbo look that way. steeling himself he refused to back down. Instead his hand went to the necklace to play with the green Bead before he took it and moved the chain inside of Bilbo’s clothing Carefully.   
Fili did so without to touch any skin, he could not risk it to do so or he would loose any restrain he held onto! 

“Promise me by Mahal and Yavanna that you will never take it off!” Fili’s voice was firm and left for no argument and it made Bilbo arch a fine brow in his surprise. Never less, he slowly nodded after a while of deep thinking. “Very well, I…” 

“No! Promise it to me By Mahal and Yavanna that you will not take my necklace off, Bilbo!” Fili interrupted Bilbo suddenly vehemently. 

He startled Bilbo with it and with the sudden grabbing of the poor Hobbit’s arms greatly, Fili could tell as much but he needed Bilbo to do it properly or it would not work what he did plan to do here. Gulping again, Bilbo gave him a cautious look before he repeated what Fili had asked for with a soft voice. Clearly not knowing what he was doing when he spoke the words out aloud that would doom his future unknowingly to him. 

“Alright! Alright, calm down Fili! Oh Valar have mercy, what has gotten into you out of the sudden?” He gave the not bulging prince another look before he sighed. 

“Oh well then… I, Bilbo Baggins promise to you, Fili Durin, by Mahal and Yavanna, to not take off this necklace freely for as long as I live! There, happy now you menace?” 

The smile Bilbo got for his words could have only been described as dazzling. The hurried nods had Bilbo fear that Fili would accidentally hurt his neck, so strong were they and he had to laugh at the exuberance of the Dwarf. 

“You are a real trouble maker, Fili Durin! But you know that, don’t you?” Bilbo told him fondly and the swordsman just grinned in return. Looking to the world as if a mountain of troubles had suddenly fallen from his shoulders. Bilbo shook it off and thought nothing of it besides that he found Fili exceptionally handsome looking like this. So happy looking and so carefree for once. 

Suddenly Fili froze and so did Bilbo in sudden alarm. 

Looking around he saw Kili gesticulate at them hurriedly before he vanished around the corner again. 

Fili let reluctantly go on Bilbo and instead took his hand to lead him to a crack in the boulder that had been hastily erected in the last days. There he shocked Bilbo again by suddenly pressing his forehead to Bilbo's before he let go on the Hobbit to quietly shoo him along on his way.   
“Please take care, Bilbo, we could not bear it if something would happen to you!” 

He told the still bewildered hobbit before Bilbo lost sight of Fili. 

Behind him, Fili looked outside and after him for a long while. The face contemplative and sad altogether. The two behind him did not say anything at all for the long it took him to mentally say his good byes to his Hobbit. When he finally turned Bofur caught his gaze.   
“Ye think that, that was wise? Bilbo knows not of what he got himself into. Mightily unfair if ye ask me. While I understand why ye did it this way, it is still somehow not fair to the poor laddy.” Bofur told Fili with a cheerless look. 

His mate simply took him into his arms and looked at Fili sadly. 

“He did what he had to, Bofur. Otherwise, with the looming treat of all of us dying, what else could my brother have done to ensure that Bilbo is and will stay his to claim?” 

Fili nodded to Kili’s words. 

“I know that I was not just to him, Bofur. But I cannot help myself! I wanted him for so long and have my duty to fulfill first, what else could I have done? With uncle mad, us sitting inside of this trap and no way to put a courting into action and Gandalf’s meddling looming at the horizon, what else was there for me.” 

He gave Bofur a sad smile. 

“You know as well as I do it that that blasted wizard would have hushed him back and away from us as soon this all was over anyways! Most likely, that was always his plan? I don’t know but what I do know is that he cannot longer take Bilbo from my grasp in any way with this in place and the words spoken! For one time only, the meddling of Gandalf will bear no fruits.” 

He gave the toymaker a devious smile that made Bofur gulp and lean back into the comforting embrace of his mate. 

“No matter what he plans and schemes now, Bilbo is mine, even not knowing it and that is all I need to know to be contend. If I die tomorrow I will do it with the surety that he will still be mine to claim I am, after all a Dwarf and of Durin’s line to boot, did you really think that I would let him escape my grasp if I could thwart it?” 

Fili’s cold gaze was positively frightening now and worried Bofur, even knowing that he had nothing to fear of Fili, ever. Of course he knew how jealous the line of Durin could become when it concerned their Ones. He could sing a song of it himself, by Aule’s beard, and what a song that would be! His mate was no exception from that rule. If anything he was even more devilish in getting what Kili wanted as his normally much calmer brother. 

Obsessive, possessive and outright dangerous they all could become if someone threatened their families and their Ones, Fili was only showing the true colors of his house and heritage openly for a time being. He had always known that this side was hiding under the skin of the heirs of the house of Durin, in a way. it was one of the points why Bofur had needed so long to come to terms with his attraction to Kili and why he had held the youngest Durin on arms length for so long. 

Once Kili had made up his heart and mind and had decided to go after Bofur in earnest, there had been no place in Arda in which he could have hidden himself from his much younger mate. Kili would have followed Bofur there to drag him back with him to Erebor. 

Bofur just wished Bilbo would not have to suffer this through. He prayed to Mahal that they would stay alive through the next days to come so his gentle friend would not have to go through the hell that would await him otherwise. He liked the Hobbit genially and had a soft heart when it came down to his friends. But he also was aware of it that Bilbo was Fili’s One. He did not want the lad to suffer a life without Bilbo, or him without Fili. And there was a big chance of one of them all dying in the next days. 

Fili must have read his acceptance in Bofur’s eyes because a honest smile suddenly played over his features. 

Clapping a hand on his brothers mate’s arm, Fili gave him a reassuring look. “Do not worry about our dear little Burglar, Bofur. That is my task now to do and nothing will change that again. I swear that I will never harm him willingly but you know that I could not have let him go from me in any other way as the one that I choose to enact upon him. He is Mine, was always Mine and will stay that way until the remaking of Arda now. And I will take care of what is Mine!” 

With that he removed his hand and walked back into the darkness of Erebor in long, confident strides. 

Fili watched his uncle nearly throw Bilbo over the balcony a day later. 

Barely held back by the combined power of Dwalin and Bofur. Kili was held back by Balin and Bombur. Thorin, he noted nothing of what happened behind him but Bilbo saw the mad glint in Fili’s eyes when Thorin held him over the edge. The last thing that Bilbo ever saw of Fili alive, was the look of utter helplessness and sadness in the blue eyes of the Dwarf when he had to crawl over the rim of the edge to climb down the ladder.   
Once the ladder was brought up again, Fili was released. 

He turned fast and hit Dwalin with his fist in the chin in his utter fury than he stalked away from the honestly shocked Dwarf and all others. Until his death, Fili did not speak a word again with either, Dwalin or his uncle. It puzzled them all greatly but no one dared to question it. All had known how much Fili seem to like the tiny Burglar and thought that he was mourning his friendship lost. 

In his rooms, Fili had sat for hours later in the darkness. 

His head in his hands, simply breathing in and out to calm his temper down enough again. What he had feared had come to pass, Bilbo was lost to him now. At least until this was solved out or else was happening. Either way, he felt that he would not see the hobbit again in this life and only the thickness of the stonewalls kept the company and his uncle from hearing his screams of utter rage and despair this night. 

The night before the final battle, Fili spend in his room alone and away from the others. 

He already knew that he would not survive the next day, felt the surety of this in his bones and was powerless to avoid the despair that came with it. He worried and fretted about Bilbo who was now in the tents down there on the foot of the mountain and alone. Wanted to go there but knew that his honor and given oaths to his uncle weighted more as his wants and needs. He only hoped that Mahal would be kind on him and grand him his wishes if he managed it to stay honorable to the end. 

And when his hands finally brought him over the edge into his release that night, Fili felt hollow because it was his own hand and not that of Bilbo that had brought him his temporally relieve. That night, he wept himself like a Dwarfling into a fitful sleep. 

When the deadly killing blow finally came hours later, it was a blessing for Fili in a way. his soul let go on the body almost at the same time his poor baby brother breathed his last breath too and together, as always, the two soared into the sky and away from all the oaths that had held them prisoner before.   
Finally, finally they were free to do as they wished.


	2. The Haunting

Bilbo looked around blearily. 

His head hurt, his entire body was one combined place of pain, if he was honest and his view was slightly off. From the hit he had received to his poor head, he was in no doubt but what really scared him was the strange, weird feeling, the ominous surety of it that, Fili was dead. 

The last he had seen of the royal brothers had been shortly before he had spotted the eagles. They had run to aid their uncle, eternally the devoted nephews even in this mad war between fife armies. Shaking slightly, Bilbo rubbed his arms at the weird cold feeling that seemingly had settled deeply in his bones. 

The necklace around his neck seems to weight a ton suddenly and he felt the need to lie down again. Closing his eyes for a moment, Bilbo swayed back and fort where he stood unsteadily. In his mind, he heard the crooning voice of Fili to let go, to fall asleep and forget everything else, as he had often done so in the past when Bilbo had been too tired to find sleep easily.

Well knowing that, that sleep, could be his last if he was not careful, Bilbo huffed twice and than tried to stand more stable instead. Shortly the feeling of discontent seem to wash over the poor Hobbit but he ignored it bravely as well as the strange murmurings in his head and went on with his unsuccessful tries to walk until a human warrior noticed him there in the gloom of the approaching night. 

He was carried hurriedly to the healing tents right after. 

What followed was a nightmare to Bilbo that he would remember and have night terrors about for the rest of his life. 

Fili was indeed dead as was Kili, killed in their attempt to protect their uncle. Thorin practically did die while Bilbo sat with him and Bofur looked like ghost all the while. Sitting next the still body of his mate. Bilbo finally took a heart and dragged the not resisting Dwarf out of the tent with him in his despair.  
Soon after, Bifur came and lead the poor widower away with him… or better said, he tried. 

Bofur did not let go on Bilbo and so, he was forced to follow the two to a tent with the sign of the Durin family painted on the walls and staid with the family of Bofur for the rest of the night. He had the oddest nightmares that night. He did dream of Fili standing in the tent, looking pastry white, like a ghost. He never came near nor did he try to touch Bilbo in his sleep but he kept staying there and watching the Hobbit, just like Fili had done it on their journey. 

What threw Bilbo off at the picture was the odd smile, more the smirk of a predator that the familiar visage held all the while that he did so. It soo did not seem to fit with what Bilbo had known of Fili and contorted the handsome face to a mask of cruelty that had Bilbo shiver, even in his sleep.  
Dain Ironfoot took one look at Bofur in the next morning to than make a face and than bow deeply to the widower of Kili. Than he strode out without a word spoken and left them to their peace again. Bilbo found that behavior rather strange if not crude. 

Later came Gandalf and than came Balin. 

The latter finally explained the strange way the other Dwarves choose to interact with Bofur out of the sudden, to the poor confused Bilbo.  
“You see, laddy, it is like this.” The old Dwarf had told the concerned and slightly angry Bilbo to calm him down when he was about to go and kick the leader of the Iron mountain Dwarrow’s. “When the mate of a Dwarf dies, they usually do not survive that for long.” 

“What?!” At Bilbo’s clueless and shocked look, Balin had sighed and told Bilbo what he knew. 

“We are bound to our mates by Mahal and Yavanna’s grace, you see. Especially so, when the mates are the One of each other, they rarely survive the dead of their partners any longer as a year at best. Usually, when there are children, their mates survive, for the life and happiness of the children that need a parent. Otherwise, their spouses usually die. It is one of the curses of our race that hinder our growing into a bigger society and also why there are not so many Dwarves in Arda as there are humans or elves.” 

At his words, Bilbo felt a sudden chill run over his spine…he knew that phrase from somewhere…

Looking around him covertly, Balin suddenly moved closer to the befuddled Hobbit. He gave Bilbo a contemplative look before he went on, in a much more hushed voice as before. It was barely above a whisper. 

“It… is complicated and not… often spoken about to outsiders but since I saw the chain that you hide under your tunic laddy, I think, a fair warning is in order because, I have the fear that Fili did something not very honorable to you, lad!” 

Bilbo gave the Dwarf a confused look. He had always had the feeling that there was something fishy going on with this present from Fili, although he could never prove it. 

“You mean this one? He made me promise to not take it off with any explanation given in as to why.” Bilbo showed it shortly to Balin who blanched slightly when he heard the Hobbit’s words.

Balin gave a short nod, his face suddenly grim. 

“Exactly as I feared it to be! Stupid boy! What was he thinking he was doing… oh, never mind now. What is done is done.”  
He shook his head sorrowfully. 

“Listen, Bilbo, this is very important so listen closely!” He waited until Bilbo nodded earnestly. “I cannot tell you everything, it is against the rules of my kin but I can tell you this at least: never ever show any reaction to voices or visions or Valar forbid, try to talk to the death! This sounds crazy, I know but head my warnings or you will find out the dark secret of that necklace all too soon. And Never, Ever open your doors on the seven days and nights of the death in the Dwarvish calendar to anyone!” 

Bilbo gulped. 

What was Balin trying to tell him here? That the death could come back to haunt him? He had read up a little about Dwarves in his youth and knew that they believed that in some cases the deceased could come back in those seven days of the year that where dedicated to the seven fathers of the Dwarves, to try to charm others into following them to the halls of their forefathers. 

He couldn’t mean…! 

Balin nodded calmly when he saw the realization seep into Bilbo’s eyes. 

“Better even, try to close the doors, the windows and every other way inside as best as you can. Take talismans from the elves with you to banish evil spirits or to keep what they call the houseless out of your Smial, Bilbo. Do not bother with the Dwarvish ones; they will not help you with this. We are forbidden from it to interferer and technically, I am walking a very thin line here with telling you this all, lad. However, you deserve it since Fili has not seen it fit to ask and warn you properly as it is custom. He should have known better, the boy.” 

With that Balin rose and with a last pat on Bilbo’s head and a murmured take care, he left the tent. 

He left a bewildered Bilbo in his wake that suddenly felt rather cold and uneasy. He was faster up and out as Bofur could grasp him by his tunic. Outside, Bilbo fast tried to locate Gandalf and found him finally in the tent of the elven King who looked rather spooked at the air behind Bilbo before he did something strange. 

A set of elvish word hit the air staccato like meanwhile he made some signs with his pale hands and the strange feeling of being watched all day suddenly vanished from Bilbo’s mind. He let a gasp of relieve escape before he addressed Gandalf and asked him and Thranduil for help.  
He learned that day that one of the animosities between the Dwarves and the Elves stemmed from the Dwarrow custom to follow their dead mates into the next world or better said, the ghosts of the deceased haunting the living until they did! They literally did not leave them alone until they gave in and left their shells behind. 

In the cases of mated pairs, they almost every time did so. Only when there where small children, they found the strength to keep on living. Mahal obviously forbade their mates then to haunt them to have them take care of the little ones. 

In Bilbo’s case, it was a bit different. 

He had never really agreed to Fili courting him and neither had he exchanged the needed vows for his Ghost to have full power over his soul. Nevertheless, he had made the promise, by Yavanna and Aule, the latter in the speech of the Dwarves called Mahal, to never take it off and so, had given the sly brat the right to haunt him in a way at least to make him give in. 

Bilbo’s poor head was reeling and he suddenly understood why Dain had looked at Bofur with such a grimace of pity and pain, he had known about it the moment he had seen the poor Dwarf that he was properly lost already. Churning with anger, Bilbo took note of everything he was told that he had to avoid and what he had to do in order to have his peace from a certain Ghost and went back to the tent. 

Armed with some amulets and other stuff that was effectively warding off unwelcome Ghosts of the Houseless from Thranduil and his advisors and elves that had knowledge about these things. 

The first thing that Bilbo did was to sidestep a surprised Bifur and Bombur and put an amulet around Bofur’s neck, than he sat down and waited. Not for long. Soon the poor Dwarf looked back at him with sadness in his lovely eyes that nearly broke Bilbo’s heart. 

“Take that off again, please! I can no longer hear Kili with that around my neck!” He shook his curly head, all the while aware of it that a sudden, angry wind seems to howl around the tent. 

“NO! I cannot imagine Kili to be that callous to want to drive you into an early Grave just to have you faster with him in the halls of Mandos! I wonder,” He mused aloud, while not directly addressing the angry Ghosts around the tent that had fallen eerily silent when Bilbo had spoken up, “if that is what it means to be loved by him? I mean was he really that selfish? To hurt you now only to get his will? I always thought him to be kind and good soul and would have followed him and his brother everywhere but this…this is below their honor to do and I refuse to believe that they would do such evil only to get their will!” 

There was suddenly such a silence around them all, you could have heard a feather fall onto the earth. 

An angry, wraithlike howl, a rattling of the rafters of the tent and gone were the presences of whatever had hovered around Bofur and Bilbo since the battle. Nodding to himself, Bilbo stood and went packing. He addressed Bifur over his shoulder, not turning around to see if the Dwarf would do what he said. 

“Bifur, take Bofur’s bundle and pack it, Now! I will take him back with me to Hobbington. Here, he is not safe. They would get him here as certainly as the sky is blue. There, I can work with the magic of the shire to hold them at bay, here the area is drenched in Dwarrow magic and nothing would work for long. The very land belongs to your people, an ineffective wish at best to try to fight them here or to make them see reason. Too stubborn those two idiots, even when dead. The whole bunch of them, confound the entire line!” 

He went calmly on to pack his own travel pack while he heard Bifur begin to rustle around in the tent behind him and Bombur quietly sob while helping his cousin. 

“Gandalf and the eagles will help us to gain as much distance between the mountain and us as they can. That should give us some advantage, although, maybe you would rather die that way, Bofur?” He finally turned around to the slowly more conscious looking Bofur in Bombur’s shocked hold on his brother. Bilbo fixed his gaze with that of the miserable looking toymaker. 

The Dwarf gave him a sad look and than shook his head slowly. 

“No, I do not. As much as I love and miss him already, I would like to stay a bit longer in this world. If only to see my family settle and they find happiness of their own, Bilbo. He always knew that I wished for that. But I do not believe that we have a chance, not with them, both determined, as they are, ye do not understand, Bilbo! They are Durin’s! And one of the line of Durin has nether failed to take their loved ones with them to the halls of Mahal. Ever!”  
Bilbo’s smile was positively evil when Bofur looked beseechingly at the Hobbit and reminded him strangely at Fili’s from the night at the gate. 

“Well, my dear friend, then they will simply have to be the firsts! Because, I am a Hobbit and Fili tricked me, with your knowledge but about that, we will talk later. Rest assured, Bofur I do not plan to die any time soon. No matter what that insolent brat of a Durin thinks. If he wanted something from me before, he should have staid Alive and told Me, damnit!” 

He huffed crossly and turned to his packing again. 

Behind him, Bifur snorted and Bombur and even Bofur sniggered madly at his outburst. 

In the end, the eagles had one unexpected extra guest that refused adamantly to step down from his wish to accompany them back to the shire; Bifur. Who had refused to leave his cousins side in this time of need, and if only to bring Bofur’s bones back to the Mountain as well as Bilbo’s if both failed in their try to escape the them haunting brothers. To burry them here within the tombs of the Prince’s, as it was custom. No one had hindered them, but than again, all had been at the burial of the last of the direct line of the house of Durin when the eagles came to get them. 

Only they had been amiss in the gathering and once Dain had noted that and researched for them, he found them already gone to the Valar only knew, where.  
He silently wished them luck and went on with his duties. 

Bilbo was fuming, no, he was absolutely livid with fury to be honest. Bodily vibrating in his silent rage even. His wrath hung around the small Hobbit like a dark cloud and made even the eagle that bore him, Landroval, gulp. Whatever had set Bilbo off; he did not want to become a part of it. Gandalf only gave the Hobbit a silent look of understanding and kept silent. 

Before they had set off, Bilbo had overheard a conversation between Dain and one of the ravens. 

Lady Dis had died the moment her sons and brother had breathed their last breath. The Dwarrow that had been near her that day had seen the vague shape of her former husband appear and then she had simply stopped breathing. Her body would be brought to Erebor for the funeral on the side of her ancestors within the next weeks, together with that of her husband that would be dug out of his current grave for that. 

Bilbo found that custom ghastly and cursed Thorin in his mind profoundly. 

Yep, Bilbo was one fumingly mad bundle of angry energy right now and that already, since four hours with no sign of abating of his anger! He just knew that Thorin had a hand in this, only if he could prove it. Sighing, Bilbo snuggled slowly into the warm feathers and finally let himself go enough to cry.  
For Dis that he had never known but couldn’t help to feel sympathy for nonetheless. 

For Kili, bright and laughing and always-happy young Kili, who had never had a chance to become a real prince.  
For Thorin, the king under the mountain, that never really was the king in the end, even deserving it like no other possibly before him in his line.  
For Bofur, normally so kind and happy and full of life, Bofur, who now was a wreck and haunted by a Ghost.  
For himself, because he wished that he had seen this coming earlier and could have done something, anything about it in time whereupon he now would never have a chance to do so. 

Finally, Bilbo cried for Fili too. 

Even being mad at him, Bilbo cried for the loss of the chance of Fili to ever be the great king he had shown the promise to become. Wonderful, calm, clever, maddening and prone to practical mischief, Fili, who would now always be beyond Bilbo’s and all others reach and never laugh or smirk at them all again. 

Even if he had felt a slight attraction to the Dwarf before, now Bilbo felt only cold horror when he thought of Fili, that and anger for being tricked into this situation. He still did somewhat not believe that this all was real! It sounded like a story out of a book with bad fairytales to the Hobbit. However, he knew that fooling himself would not keep him and Bofur safe in the end. If anything, it would only give Fili and Kili the time to work them over.  
He could not risk that, in neither case, Bofur’s nor his. 

He trusted Gandalf and if he said it was true, then it was so. As much as Bilbo hated it. Didn’t matter, he thought, he had now to keep not only himself but also one of his dearest friends safe and those two rascals from doing something stupid. Bilbo sighed. From what he had gathered, Gandalf had not wanted for something like this to happen to Bilbo. He had tried his best to keep the Hobbit clueless from these darker facts of Dwarrow lore and way of life and that in turn had somewhat backfired on the Wizard in the end. 

Because, Fili that horrible, clever, genius had seen right through it, had taken advantage of the Wizard’s absence, and had settled Bilbo with this cursed necklace of his when Gandalf wasn’t around! 

Bilbo had always been wary of the older of the brothers, not only because Fili had always stared so intently at him but also because he had instinctually felt the attraction between them. A silent voice in his mind had always warned him to come to near to the flame of the blond haired swordsman; hence, he would not burn in his flames otherwise! 

A bad metaphor, Bilbo was aware of it, but it fit the situation all the same in the end. 

He groaned into the enduring feathers of the eagle that by now had a good laugh out of the Hobbit on his back. That small creature was obviously not fond of heights but in his fuming before, the Hobbit had ignored that until now in favor to be angry. Landroval wondered how long it would take the tiny creature to become aware of it again… 

It took Bilbo not too long, as it turned out. He turned a rather alarming shade of green when he finally got aware of it that had Gandalf shortly fear for the worst. 

Soon after he had calmed down, he risked a glance over one side and ever since clutched now the feathers of the amused eagle while Bilbo looked awed at the sight of the land under the mighty wings of the eagle. 

The eagles took them all the way back to the valley of Imladris. Rivendell, Bilbo found out to his uttermost surprise, had somehow lost its glow in his eyes. Seeing it now, with all the pain and loss behind him, he could suddenly no longer bear it to be here for longer as necessary. And once they reached the invisible borders, the presence in his mind that Bilbo had come to associate with Fili’s staring at him in the past vanished abruptly. 

Only a lonesome twin howling of two ghostly voices told him that his musings had been right, the two could not follow them here. 

Lord Elrond took care to research all he knew about this Dwarvish custom and how one could avoid it to fall victim to Mahal’s macabre gift to his children.  
Even with his help, it took Bilbo and the others weeks to uncover all that there was while his nights where filled with strange dreams. 

It begun a week into their stay that Bilbo began to have them. Dreams of Fili’s voice, coming to him like through a thick fog, calling out to Bilbo to leave that place and he pleaded with the Hobbit to come back to him. When he woke the first time, Bilbo was covered in sweat and shivered wildly. The voice had sounded so lonely, so sad… 

The next was much the same and it was well into the second week of their stay when they begun to change in tune. 

Now, Bilbo often heard Fili rant in the distance never at him but at his hosts. At his inability to come near to Bilbo to watch him. He took to seduction in the end of the third week. Telling Bilbo in detail how much he missed it to see him. That he wanted to hold him again as he had done at the Carrock, that he wanted him safe. 

The once so loved voice began to become a constant menace in Bilbo’s life because the brat took to it to describe to Bilbo all the things he had wanted to do to Bilbo if he had survived. 

When Bilbo finally mentioned this to Elrond, his room was warded up to the ceiling and the dreams, thankfully stopped. 

He finally set off with the others and Gandalf after a three months lasting stay and was armed to the necks with new talismans and amulets, and some heavier magic’s, written down onto scrolls to keep the unwanted company away from them all. Bofur had recovered nicely while they staid here and Bilbo had the suspicion that the elf lord had something to do with it. 

Fife weeks later, the strange menagerie of travelers reached the Shire… only to have to break up Lobelia’s selling off all the items of Bilbo’s estate in the end. 

To get lost of her was easy, Bilbo only looked at Bofur who in turn looked at Bifur and a few minutes later the nasty relative of Bilbo could suddenly close her mouth and run home. White as a sheet and bare of Bilbo’s silver spoons. It was almost midnight when all of them finally found some rest. Bilbo was the last to go to bed, after he had secured every single talisman in place as he had been told. 

He took no risks anymore. Not after Fili had managed it to somehow reach him in Rivendell and all that happened in between the Shire and the elven realm. 

In the last three weeks, since leaving the borders of Rivendell, he had felt again something, someone following them on their travels. 

Shivering, Bilbo had told that to Gandalf when Bofur was asleep and Bifur was busy. The Wizard had done something but it had not worked much. If anything, it had made the Ghosts angry and they had to bear with uncommon rabbit weather changes all the way back until they hit the borders of the Shire lands and as Elrond had predicted it, Yavanna’s gentle nature magic stopped the malevolent acting up of whatever followed them here somewhat. 

They behaved suddenly a lot less like wrights and more like menaces what had Gandalf soon grumble annoyed at their antics. 

His pipe vanished out of his robe to reappear further away from Gandalf were it seemingly lit itself and puffed itself away all from alone while they all could only stare at the floating pipe, right out of their reach with unbelieving eyes. Then it fell down to the earth with a loudly clatter and all of them heard the childish laughter of Kili shortly fill the air out shortly after. With a mighty curse upon his lips, Gandalf reclaimed his pipe. 

Bilbo’s waistcoat got suddenly wings and flew in front of the frantically trying to catch it Hobbit, always a step ahead of the poor Bilbo. That went on until Bilbo cursed Fili to hell and back threatened to go back to Erebor to place a warg into Fili’s coffin if he did not give it back… surprisingly, it worked. The coat fell right into his arms after that. 

However, from that day on, Bilbo saw strange shapes float around them all from time to time and refused to further address any of the ghosts to not deepen their fell magic on work. 

The next that happened was that Bofur’s poor hat changed the color from brown to a bright red. The poor Dwarf needed half a day to get the color out of it again, cursing all the time it took and asking Bilbo if he would let him come along to place Ork shit into Kili’s grave for the stunt. Right on his Mates cock if he could manage it. 

He had Bilbo double over in laugher and the ghosts in a fit. 

After that declaration, all of their items in the camp formed a sudden whirlwind around them all that needed hours to calm down again. Bifur nearly lost his conscious because he laughed that hard when he saw the riot, that he nearly hyperventilated and Gandalf simply ignored the entire thing altogether in favor to keep the angry Ghosts away from their persons. 

The next that happened included their poor ponies. 

They suddenly sported all kinds of insects in their furs and all had a hard time to get the blasted crawlies out of the long hair pony’s winter furs again. This time the Ghosts were laughing in the end. That wend on all the time it took for them to reach Bilbo’s home. 

One time, Gandalf’s normally grey travel garb was suddenly black in the morning, another time, Bilbo sported braids in his curls when he woke up. The latter became a habit that scared him so greatly that he had troubles to find sleep in his repulsion to have a ghost braid his hair while he was asleep. Bofur too sported braids each morning after that and Bifur’s axe in the head was one morning cleaned and brushed to shine that madly in the sun that he had to cover it with dark ink from Bilbo to make the damn glowing stop. Nevertheless, strangely enough, they encountered no Ork’s, Warge or Trolls on their way home. 

In addition, neither bandits nor other bad folk that normally cluttered along the roads in this time of the year. 

One time they saw the fresh corpses of four bandits barely hidden from sight on their way. All had sported horrified looks on their faces and looked to them like they had tried to ward something creepy off or to escape some kind of horrible monster… no one had commented on it. They had simply ridden on. 

Sometimes it was better not to ask. 

Once they had stepped inside of Bilbo’s a bid chaotic looking Smial, Gandalf and he had set to work while Bifur and Bofur had brought the brought back items and furniture of Bilbo back inside again. 

They finally had a respite from the, them haunting duo that lasted exactly as long as it took Gandalf to leave Bilbo and co. A full week. Then, the rattling of his windows and the upturning of his garden plants begun to appear. Followed from the smoke pressed back inside at night, they went without the fires burning after that to not accidentally suffocate from the smoke to end in a strange howling around the Smial by night. Footprints appeared in the soil before the house and vanished again from alone, a dead cat was laid onto Bilbo’s doorstep, what made him scowl to be followed by a warg corpse that appeared unexpectedly on his rooftop. 

The Hobbits begun to whisper and stay away from cursed, mad Baggins house after that. 

That no one visited anymore seems to calm down the ghosts of Fili and Kili because no more animals appeared around his home. Sometimes now there was a sound filling the air around Back shot row that was sounding like a fiddle or two in some nights. Always playing haunting dirges and sad tunes and sometimes a fare away sounding voice seemed to accompany the music. 

At one time, it sounded like Fili’s voice, at others as Kili’s. 

Bofur and Bilbo exchanged worried glances with Bifur but no one of all of them dared to call out to the ghosts to stop the brothers.  
Winter came with masses of snow and brought more footprints of the boots of the brothers in the snow. The duo seems to have fun to run around the house at night and to stare into certain rooms from the looks of it. At some times the frozen garden behind Bilbo’s Smial looked like a war zone. Clearly, the duo had used the grounds as training area at night. 

He grumbled much about it but did nothing to try to stop them, it would not have worked anyways and besides, Bilbo did not dare to step outside at night in fear of having to face the ghosts of the two at night and alone. No one knew what could happen if he ever had to. He was not willing to take on that risk. Instead, he huddled up in his bed at night and tried to drown out the howling sounds or the music that floated inside from the outside. He even hung a sheet now over the glass of his room window at night. 

Near the end of the year, Lobelia decided to bother Bilbo again, despise his Smial being told of being haunted in the late! 

She ranted at the surprised Bilbo for two hours, threw his mothers favorite vase against a wall and behaved like a harpy in his poor home. All of that because he refused to give her one coin of his supposedly many riches that he had to have brought back from his mad adventure in reparations for his now obviously Haunted and so, worthless estate. That was still his estate and not Lobelia’s, as Bilbo did finally point it out to her in the end. 

She only ceased her raving when Bifur and Bofur came back from the markets and chased her out. 

Outside, she was promptly assaulted by snowballs with sharp stones inside that pelted down on the shrieking hobbit lass while she run away from the residence at her top speed. 

Bilbo could only grimace at her departure and the destroyed items, vase and furniture in her wake before he stopped to look at the mess and cleaned the chaos up with a defeated sigh. Bofur helped quietly meanwhile Bifur put their groceries away. They had in the late bought a lot food in the knowledge that the seven days of the death were upon them soon. 

For the period of seven days and nights, they would be unable to leave the hole or risk running into Fili and Kili…literally. 

As a horrified Bilbo had to learn in Rivendell from Lord Erestor; Dwarven ghosts could take on a lend bodily form on those days. Made it was from rock and after the last night, they turned back into stone while the houseless became ghosts only again. For that entire time of seven days and nights, they would have to hole up in here and keep everything closed off so the two rapscallions could not find a way in to bother them for the entire time.  
He shuddered at the mere thought of it and had even more nightmares about his fear that the two could find a way inside. Not certain what would happen then other as mayhem. 

In the late, the two had become uncommonly silent. Had ceased with almost all of their former shenanigans and had being surprisingly absent at night too. No more traces of boots in the snow and only a minimum of traces of the two of being here at all. It worried Bilbo more as he could say because to him, it looked like the brothers tried to gather power for their turning into bodied beings again! 

To accept it to have the two as ghosts around was one thing to deal with, but to see them again in bodily from, even if only lend to them for a time, would be dreadful and Bilbo knew that too. 

It was beginning to get dark, as it was wont around this time of the year quite early, when Bilbo finally brought the rubbish out to dumb it in the garden or to store it for later burning in a small hole in the hill next to his Smial made for this purpose only. On his way there, the sun dipped low over the horizon and when he went back, Bilbo felt a fleeting, cold touch in his hair in the darkness that made the hair on the nape of his neck stand up in fright!  
Bilbo froze for a moment in place until he felt something like a fleeting kiss press on his neck that traumatized the hell out of the poor Hobbit. 

With a yelp, the Hobbit threw the dustpan into the air behind him at his invisible attacker and raced back inside to slam the door behind him into the lock to then lock it and slide down against it shaking badly. It was Bifur who helped him up again without a comment and over to the fireplace to warm up and calm down. Still, the place where he had felt the ghostly lips press into his vulnerable skin took a longer while to warm up again and even rubbing the spot almost raw did not help the matter. It was as if the touch had branded itself into his skin, it even showed the faint outline of lips for a while until the mark finally faded again. 

Bilbo wore a shawl from there on when he went outside, that was tugged at all the time what he stoically ignored along the whines that came with the tugging. 

The next time Lobelia tried her luck in making a fuzz was in the market when Bilbo went there a week later to stock up on cheese and wasn’t paying attention as he normally did it. Strangely enough, the other Hobbits had become nice to him since they had gotten it that Bilbo had a hard time when away that was littered with losses and much pain. 

Who had told them that, that staid a miracle to Bilbo, Bofur and Bifur but someone seemingly had? 

She ranted away once she got the sight of him and even made Bilbo loose his hold on his cheese blocks in his shock one time… only to have the blocks fall to the side in a way that was not natural, whatever Hamfast said later about it, to end up on Lobelias feet. She howled like a Warg in terror and hopped around long enough for him to escape the mess… with his cheese. 

Bifur laughed himself silly once he heard about it and Bofur made a song of Bilbo the cheesy hero, the defeater of monster Hobbit ladies… needless to say he wasn’t exactly silent and neither had Bofur any qualms to sing it aloud when he whittled away on something outside the Smial in daylight.  
Soon the blasted song was secretly and not so secretly sung all over the Shire with mirth from the many Hobbits that had a chicken to pluck with Lobelia Sackville Baggins. And if the wind sometimes seems to whistle the melody eerily too, it did not seem to startle the Hobbits much anymore they had somehow gotten used to the ghosts that obviously did linger around Bag End in the late. 

What ended with her showing up again with her husband in tow to rant at Bilbo. This time, Bofur took to it to chase her away, with a broom in hand he practically chased them down the entire way to the market with a wicked grin of glee on his face what had more than one Hobbit double over in laughter, seeing the spectacle. Later he came back whistling a merry tune and looking better as in the last months all together. 

That night he was rather merry for the first time in months so, neither Bifur nor Bilbo had the heart to scold him for his reckless act. 

The next week went by without a trouble than someone set fire to the outside store hole of Bilbo at night what nearly ended up in burning the Smial down by accident if some ghostly rattling of the windows had not woken them all up in time to drench the flames with snow and had him call for the Shirrif’s.  
They found nothing else as Hobbit footprints in the snow that day but since no one knew from whom they had been made, the entire affair ended in nothing and Bilbo did not store anything burnable in it again for a while. He cursed in unison with Bifur and Bofur about this while they boarded up the hole in the wall and while all three were, certain that Lobelia had something to do with this they could not proof it. When she showed up the day after to complain about it that Bilbo had told the Shirrif’s about her buggering him all the time, he screamed back in equal volume to leave him alone. 

In the end, she said something that made Bilbo blanch and implore her to take it back. 

“Maybe your, so called drunken lot of *Ghosts* that you shelter in your Smial did set it to fire! They are just homeless and dangerous Dwarves of all things anyways Bilbo Baggins! Instead of trying to become respectable again you harbor those overly hairy no goods in this Smial, especially that one with the stupid hat is dangerous and I told as much to the bounders. However, what is to expect from a Hobbit with Took blood other as trouble. You will never become respectable with the bloodline of your no good mother in your veins! Bungo should have married another lass.” 

Without to listen to him and having spew out her poison, Lobelia went home. Quite happy with herself once she saw Bilbo’s looks of rage and hurt. She never even listened to his pleas to take her words back. She did, however turn a little pale when the angry snarls and howls suddenly filled the air the like they had not sounded around Bilbo’s Smial in a longer while. If that was possible, Bilbo blanched even further before he pressed the hands to his ears with a whimper and run back inside for cover when a whirlwind of snow suddenly took up with the howls and raced after Lobelia that squeaked seeing it coming her way and run home on her top speed. 

Hamfast, who had seen the entire thing, threw the snow from the rooftop of his family Smial onto her when she went his way in his anger.  
Then he went to the Smial while mumbling apologies out aloud all the time while wringing his hands frantically in his fear and told to whoever was listening to him that he only wanted to comfort poor Master Baggins until his wonderful Dwarves came back. He was, of course talking to the Ghosts he was certain that lived in Back end now. Nothing did happen to the kind gardener, neither that night when he walked back or at any time later.  
The next morning, his Smial’s rooftop was free of any newly fallen snow and magically staid that way as well as Back End’s rooftop staid surprisingly snow-free. 

For a few days, all traces of Fili and Kili’s ghosts magically seem to have vanished around the Smial. 

Then, three days after her visit, two of the bounders, the Majors of Hobbington and Michel Delving and the Thain visited Bilbo, Bifur, and Bofur suddenly. All the bounders did was to look at the hands of the two dwarves before the older one shook his graying head. “They weren’t it, that’s for certain, Thain. They have none of the cuts that should be there nor any other wounds and the hands of those two here are too big to have left the bruises. Also, their weapons from what I know are a mattock and a boar spear and not arrows and swords.” 

At those words, all three paled and Bilbo finally inquired what was going on. 

The story was short. 

Someone had gained entry to the Smial of the Sackville-Baggins and had practically driven the older Hobbits out of it while the son had slept at a friend’s home. Whoever it was, had hunted the pair over the entire fields outside of Hobbington and had spiked them with arrows before another must have slowly but steadily cut them into pieces with a short sword right on the graveyard of Hobbington where no one had heard their cries, not even the old Hobbit living there had heard them that night. Nevertheless, that wasn’t such a miracle, the old guy was half-deaf on both ears and they were killed far from his house under an old tree that overshadowed the older part of the old graveyard. 

The Bounders had searched for them the yesterday when their son found the evidence of an intruder in the house and had called for them. Babbling about his mother having made the Dwarves in Bilbo’s home mad all the time in his shock to find the entire home of his smeared with Bloody handprints that were bigger as that of a grown Hobbit’s. 

The bloody trail the attackers had left behind made it easy to follow it back to where the Bounders finally found the leftovers of Lobelia and Ortho at the tree and in it. The one that found them first had to throw up right after and the other two had not fared much better at the picture they where presented with. They had to use a ladder to get the heads and other various parts of their bodies down from the old tree in the end. The check on Bifur and Bofur’s hands made clear that the bloody handprints in the house of the Sackville Bagginses weren’t theirs and they had been home as Bilbo told them all. What was soon confirmed from Hamfast and his wife, Bell Gamgee. 

Once all had been told and proved by various other Hobbits’ they were left alone again. All three exchanged grave looks and sat down heavily in the kitchen after a while. 

None of them went out that day or to the hastily burial of the two unfortunate souls that had roused the wrath of the ghosts of the prince’s of the line of Durin. Instead, the three kept on stocking up for the seven days and tried mentally to steel themselves for the visit that surely was to come very soon now.  
All Bilbo could do later when he was huddled under the covers of his bed, was to cry for the two fools that did not listen to warnings given and mourn for the lost lives of his relatives. As much an annoyance they had been, he had not wished them that end! 

If he ever caught Fili and Kili, he swore he would kick them in the ass for it, this had been unnecessary! 

That night he dreamed of a mad chase through the nightly winter landscape, of the terror that the person had felt and the horror of it when finally faced with something that seemingly had come right out of one of the horror tales of old to hunt them down! Of two rough and barely reconcilable voices that mocked their victims before the screaming began and he was woken roughly up by a shaking Bofur who promptly hugged the sobbing Bilbo close and crawled into his bed to keep him company that night and nearly every other after. 

Just holding the shaking Hobbit and trying not to shake himself from his own nightly terror that he had just moments before.

The two Ghosts of the Durin boys were clearly tired of waiting and made that known quite clearly as well as that they would not suffer any other overstepping towards the two in the bed either in the future. Bofur recognized the warning given for what it was and only kept his mouth shut to no more fright poor Bilbo with it. 

While Bifur took up a silent guard at the bedroom floor, never sleeping and simply watching the flames of the hearth as if they could tell him all the secrets of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can someone tell that I have troubles with writing a dark story? Hides in shame...


	3. The dark ending part A,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be Warned!   
> I worked for weeks at it, it is still not exactly what I wanted. I have a good ending too, if someone is interested in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed this long to add a third chapter because I cannot write dark fiction as it seems. I do not enjoy to make my charas cry or have them hurt or die…I am one of those sappy people who prefer happy endings. Looks around embarrassed and hides under her chair. However, the other point why I needed so long is that I have no Beta for this and after the many people who complained at my Bagginshield one-shot and its poor grammar, I nearly lost any motivation fully to end this.   
> Sighs, I have Dyslexia. There, now you all know it.   
> Furthermore, I am a native German of 45 years who has mostly self-taught herself English long after her school years. With all those handicaps beforehand, I think that I have come pretty far along on my own but I still need a Beta for each story.   
> Most likely I will take down Little matchmaker in the next days. To rework it over.   
> Therefore, if someone would be willing to Beta this mess for me, I would be eternally grateful. Until someone does it, all errors are mine once again, sorry for that beforehand.  
> Love, Suryallee

It was only two days later when Bilbo had to leave the Smial for his last visit for the year. 

If been asked, he would have not done it this year, too near was the last week of the year already for his taste and too little time had passed between the deaths of the Sackville-Baggins. He went alone. This time he couldn’t take his Dwarrow friends with him, it felt not right.   
He visited the graveyard. 

Like every year around this time if he could manage it and wasn’t too ill to be detoured.   
To be more precise, his parents graves. 

He had not told that to Bifur or Bofur, them Bilbo had told that he was off making his last buys before the end of the year. That he would stay in the market until evening. That he would be back before nightfall. 

It had all been lies. 

He stomped heavily through the newly fallen snow this day. It was just barely day, the earliest of morning hours with the light just peaking out of the heavy clouds, full with cold snow from the night. The way to the second graveyard of Hobbington wasn’t an easy one in this time of the year. Other as in the one in which Lobelia and her Husband, had been killed by the two vengeful ghost’s weeks before, this graveyard was less cared for. It also had no graveyard minder and the way was never shipped free from the snow. 

That wasn’t such a wonder thought; it was the old graveyard of the settlement. 

The one in which’s earth and soil the death of the fell winter had been buried in haste in that fateful winter. 

His parents including, there had been over three hundred Hobbits been buried in that accursed year. Well, only a few graves actually held leftovers of Hobbits… the most others where empty. With only the markers there to tell that those unfortunate souls did die, to give them a place to be remembered by their families. 

Not many Hobbits nowadays went there anymore, all too happy to forget and go on. 

He couldn’t blame them, the other survivors. It was too painful for the most to remember their losses of that fell winter. What wasn’t a wonder since the most killed in that fell winter had been Fauntlings. The wolves had gone for the weakest first. 

His parents had been separated from the others of their group when the snowstorm had seized their fleeing group and Bilbo had been with his uncle at that time. When they had later found the bodies of the couple, there had been not much to bury left. 

Bilbo had a scar from a wolf bite from that winter, it had happened when he had turned back to safe his parents and had failed. 

He had only survived because his uncle Isumbras had chased the beast away from him and had grabbed his sister’s son to bring him back with him to the others and all of them later to the Took Smial's to safety. He owned his uncle his life and Bilbo had never forgotten about that either. It was one of the whys; he was more lenient when it came to Isumbras Hobbitling’s and their shenanigans as most of the others. 

Currently a soft snowfall had set in. 

Bilbo knew from experience that it would soon turn into another snowstorm. He didn’t care much right now. He had to, no needed to visit his parents one last time this year. Usually, Bilbo went to the grave four to six times the year. Depending how bad his grief got in the year. This year, he had only visited it ones, in the earliest of spring. 

Before a group of Dwarves had invaded his home and had spirited him away on an adventure that had turned into a nightmare for him.   
He felt the presence of what he had duped, Fili’s ghost, follow him since he had set a foot out of his warm Smial. He didn’t care for once. Ignored the ghost following him with a determination bordering on madness. He was angry, hurt and wanted badly to hit something since the news of Lobelias and her husbands’ demise had reached him. It had only gotten worse since the horrid dream/memory that had visited him ever since at night. 

Moreover, if he heard Fili murmur apologies in the wind, Bilbo pretended not to pay attention to them. 

He reached the iron gates of the oldest graveyard of the Shire in the middle of the morning near midday. No one cared anymore for the now rustier than anything looking gates. Not many did bury their death here still. Only a few old families did use it nowadays, the original line of the Baggins included.   
His family branch had an old tomb here. It lay like a Smial, halfway underground and was saving Bilbo a little from the falling snow and cold winds when he finally had wrestled the gates open to step inside of the old burial place. In here, the solid walls of the earth kept the place a bit warmer as usual in winter and cold in summer. Many a night had Bilbo spend here in the last years and more days even to count. 

He lit a torch, even not really needing it to find his way in here and walked slowly down the corridor to the two small plates that hung in front of the graves of his parents. 

The ghost following Bilbo had fallen silent when he had stepped into the old graveyard. 

He was still following Bilbo, he could tell, but otherwise he had fallen silent and even seem to stay at a respectful distance for once without to make a fuzz. Bilbo could tell that Fili did not like this place. Most likely, it reminded him on it that he was dead and buried in such a place too. He simply did not care. 

Reaching the plates that hid the coffins settled into the holes for them in the wall, Bilbo hung the torch into a holder and sat heavily down onto a stone bench in front of the wall that held the reminds of nearly every generation of Bagginses since the founding of Hobbington. 

Wearily he rubbed his eyes free from his tears. He had not realized it that he had begun to cry. The tears felt hot on his cold face.   
Bilbo sat there in utter silence for more than two hours, almost all the time unmoving and crying silently. Fili’s ghost did not once dare to come closer, staid all the time near the entrance and simply watched. As usual for him in life and death as it seemed. 

Bilbo did suddenly begin to talk. When he did so, he had no clue, just at one time he must have begun to tell the ghost the tale of the fell winter that had robbed him of his happiness and childhood and, his beloved parents in one single night. He talked and talked, for seemingly hours nonstop. All the time the ghost staid in a respectful distance, made no sound. Just… listening. 

It was somehow, enough. 

When Bilbo begun to stand after some hours sitting, he almost could not get up again. He had been sitting for too long on the cold stone bench. He needed two tries to get his half-frozen body back to work properly. When he managed it, Bilbo stepped close to the graves and touched the copper plates mournfully. Especially that of his mother. 

He missed her still so badly! 

Her laughter, her smiles her soft words. Her tales, good and bad, her understanding and never ending patience and guidance… all of this, Bilbo missed fiercely. 

When he finally turned, Bilbo had to grasp the wall for support in his shock at what he suddenly saw standing in front of him a short distance away. He actually lost his balance so that he had to sit down hard on the bench again. 

There, in the entrance stood the ghost that he had always known follow him around but had never really seen when being awake.   
Fili. 

Bilbo felt his breath leave him in a hot gush of air at the unsuspected vision. 

The ghost did not look happy at all was another thing that shocked Bilbo a bit. He looked rather livid to the poor hobbit. Fili glared with stormy eyes at a point in the distance. When he finally moved, Fili stepped around the bench to come to rest at the plates and raised a hand to touch them rather uncommonly carefully with his ghostly hands. Now he looked rather sad. Somehow, Bilbo realized it that Fili’s anger wasn’t directed at him or his poor late parents, but at the wolves that had killed them. He felt strangely comforted by that revelation. 

Turning so he could look at Bilbo who watched him silently, he gave the Hobbit a long, sad look before Fili turned and walked around the bench to seat finally himself an arms length away from Bilbo onto the bench. There, the ghostly form hunched over a little and simply stared at his hands for a long while. 

Bilbo used the time to study the apparition calmly and for once, without fear. 

He did not exactly look like before, in his life but that was to expect, the Hobbit thought. The entire specter was of a weird white coloring. Well, not really white but it looked like a faded picture to Bilbo. The colors of his garb, in life they must have been a vivid mix of gold and warm browns, now looked rather washed out in a strange way. 

Bilbo knew that Fili had been buried in robes befitting his status as a member of the line of Durin and heir to Erebor.   
He had just always assumed that he would have been laid to rest in the royal Durin blue. Dain had seemingly cared enough to burry his former friend in his favorite colors. Furs, leather and yellows, browns and hints of silvery highlights. 

Fili had preferred those warmer, earthen colors to the usual royal colors that Kili and Thorin had favored in life. 

The ghostly specter wore a fine robe of a brown main color that was interwoven with gold treats through and through in typical Dwarven design. It showed his personal one right above his chest together with the sign of the house of Durin, somehow skillfully interwoven to show his status as Thorin’s heir and a prince of the line of Durin the deathless. 

The under tunic was a darker brown and highlighted with yellow fur on the arms. The pants looked like the finest brown leathers Bilbo had ever seen made some out of and ended tucked in a fine pair of steel boots with gold inlays and buckles. His arms wore his old bracers, made of steel and his hair was intricately braided to perfection as far the Hobbit could tell. 

Dain had outdone himself and Bilbo knew it. 

He had laid all three to rest, as their status had deserved it. Not spared on gold and riches, had given them all the burial of kings if Bilbo was not mistaken. 

He also noted that Fili still wore his weapons with him and that he now wore a coat instead of his former overlay, lined with fur. The new look… fitted the dwarf, Bilbo found and he shook sadly his head at the thought. 

Fili said nothing; he just proceeded to stare down at his hands. 

When he finally turned his eyes to the Hobbit, the gaze was filled with a longing that had Bilbo swallow hard seeing it directed at himself. Fili still did not speak thought. He merely gazed at the other male sadly. Finally, one hand reached up and hovered near Bilbo for a moment before Fili let it fall again with a sigh. 

He had seen Bilbo’s flinch just in time. 

Standing abruptly, Fili turned sharply to look at the plates again.   
When he finally spoke, the voice seems to come from fare away to the grave filled tomb. 

*Why are you insisting on fighting me, Bilbo, when you are clearly in so much pain living?* 

His once blue gaze was now white and empty. Only a white filled form where the blue orbs should have been. The sight had Bilbo cry out in shock and nearly fall from the bench. 

He backed away slowly from the still standing and at him staring ghost in a sudden bout of fear. Fili sighed again and closed his eyes for a moment with a grimace of despair shortly flitting over his features. 

When he snapped his eyes open again, they still looked empty to Bilbo but now it wasn’t such an alien sight anymore as before for the poor Hobbit. Well, it still was, only no longer he felt shocked by it. It rammed it home that he had broken one of the taboos that Elrond had told him and Balin had warned him about. 

To not to talk to them, hence you got their attention and invited them back into your vision and lives.   
Moreover, that Fili was not really here anymore. That he was only a ghost that haunted Bilbo now, to drag him into the afterlife with him if he could manage it. This time, Bilbo was the one who grimaced and sighed. 

“Why Fili. Why did you and your brother have to kill them? That was cruel and unnecessary, damnit all!” 

The ghost in front of Bilbo shrugged. 

*Because we could? Because they meant danger to you and Bofur? Because they badmouthed my line and you…you know that the reasons are endless.*   
His answers gave Bilbo no more peace as before, they only fueled his anger and despair if anything to go by. He gave Fili’s ghost a glare that would have had the Dwarf cringing if he had been still alive. Now, the specter just shrugged it off nonchalantly and avoided Bilbo's gaze. 

*Those two souls were tainted, Bilbo* His gaze went back to stare orb-less at the fuming Hobbit. *Their minds filled with evil and greed worse as the Dragon sickness of my uncle back than.* His head tilted oddly to the side and he folded his arms before Fili continued. *You have no idea what those two have had in mind for you and the others, let alone how far gone they were already. So don’t go and judge my decision and that of my brother to remove them from the creation as we saw fit! They deserved it.* 

His entire stance told Bilbo that Fili would not be moved from his point of view in this. It was a sight that Bilbo had often see Thorin adopt in the past. The mouth was set in the same stubborn half scowl that his uncle too had always sported. Fili would not ever rethink his verdict made and Bilbo knew it.   
He shook in barely suppressed anger under the sightless gaze of the apparition for several minutes with his hands balled to fists and his eyes tightly squeezed shut. 

*Oh Bilbo, Bilbo… you were always much too soft when it came down to your enemies in the past before too. Everyone always got a second and often even third to seventh chance from you since the minute I meet you. It is one of the many little quirks that made me fall so madly in love with you.* Bilbo flinched visibly at the last word and made a step backwards away from the ghost. He could practically hear Fili shaking his head at him. *I bet you would even have given Azog one if you would have had the chance… but I was never as merciful and forgiving as you, my dear Hobbit were. My uncle would have done just the same as Kili and I. Isn’t a wonder thought, we are Dwarves and not Hobbits and even your kin has limits that seem to elude you altogether, my poor friend.* 

Bilbo turned on his heels and strode outside to get some space. 

He hated Fili for voicing this out so bluntly. 

What was wrong with trying to give others a second chance? 

He felt Fili following him when he wrestled with the newly fallen snow that now covered a good deal of his formerly made path through it. It was later as he had wanted to go home again but somehow that was not important anymore since Fili followed him now visibly anyways.   
Behind him the ghost left no prints in the snow, he seems to float over the snow. 

*You cannot avoid me forever, Bilbo. One of these days you will have to face me my dear Hobbit.* 

Bilbo shook his head angrily, not caring when his tears flew around and turned to ice too when hitting the cold snow. Bending down, Fili took one into his hands and held it there to stare at it sadly. 

*Bilbo, oh Bilbo… why do you cry for such foul souls that now has to face their judgment in Mandos halls? They would never have cried a single tear for you.* 

Bilbo ignored Fili’s voice and stomped through the snow with new vigor. Determined to bring more distance between him and Fili as Bilbo could manage and he nearly slipped a few times doing so. 

Behind him, Fili shook his head sorrowfully at the display of persistence. 

A sudden gush of wind, an unexpected swirl of snowflakes and ice and the path was suddenly free of the most of the white stuff. Bilbo couldn’t help to gap at the unpredicted spectacle. Shaking it off, Bilbo gave a shrug and trotted on. Now much easier as before since he had no longer to wrestle through the slippery stuff. 

“…thanks.” 

*You’re welcome, Bilbo. Actually it is more that I do not like to see you suffer but I don’t think you will believe me that anyways, so…* 

“You’re right with that! I do not!” 

Bilbo turned around in the middle of the path and stalked up to Fili until their noses almost touched. His eyes seem to spit fire and his entire frame did quiver with barely suppressed anger. In one word, Bilbo was furious. 

“Care than to tell this poor fool why you are doing this to him Master Fili?!” Bilbo all but snarled into the now rather surprised looking face of the specter. Fili arched his brows at the sight and the sneer in Bilbo’s voice that he could detect. He knew very well what Bilbo meant with his cryptic question from the looks of it. 

Around them the wind and snow suddenly took up and begun to swirl dangerously around the unlikely pair in the middle of the path leading to  
Hobbington. That display of power went on until a small whirlwind surrounded the two to suddenly… simply stop and all fell down to the ground again.   
Fili took his time with his answer and Bilbo stubbornly held his ground until the Blond did deign to give him one. 

*What else was there left for me to do as an alternative, you tell me, Bilbo?* Unexpectedly Fili seem to deflate and looked to the ground and away from the still scorching glare of Bilbo. 

*I never wanted to this to you but that move was the only alternative I had left. So I could stay near to you…* He heaved what looked a sigh and moved his face back to Bilbo who still glared at him. *Otherwise I would have lost you, and that was not acceptable!* 

“You never had Me! I mean, you never showed any sign of any kind of attachment besides friendship before or…! Ohhh, confound you, Fili Durin! You tricked me into this dance of death with you, curse it and expect me to simply give in and be happy with it!” Bilbo grabbed his hair in his frustration to find not the right words to describe his feelings and anger correctly. 

He must have managed it anyways because Fili gave Bilbo a lopsided grin before he shrugged. 

*Again, what else was left there for me to ensure that you will be mine? Otherwise, someone else could have snatched you away from me before I could ever have had the chance to make you mine and that was not acceptable. Moreover, neither was that if you had died, that I would have lost you forever!* His glare now leveled Bilbo’s in heat easily. 

There in Fili's, gaze was now something wild almost feral, that had Bilbo nearly steps away from the irritated ghost. In the last minute, he caught himself and held his ground. 

“Excuse me? Whoever has said that I wanted this all or you? You are insufferable!” 

Fili gave Bilbo another shrug. 

*And who said that I care? I am a Dwarf, Bilbo. We know when we meet the one person that is meant for only us when we meet them. Such is not a fairytale it is the truth. How could I not try everything I could to keep you with me?*  
Bilbo let a high-pitched wail escape his lips in his rage at the crazy situation he found himself trapped. 

“You drive me to insanity!” 

Fili gave Bilbo a sad look again; it lacked any remorse, thought. 

*And you think you don’t drive me mad either? I know that you are not a Dwarf, that you do not see the things as we do, Bilbo. That you think that I want only to kill you, but that is not what this is about! I also know that you think that I am mad and evil now because you only see the negative in all of this. Nevertheless, that isn’t it either what this is about.* 

He stopped ranting, rubbed his face wearily when Bilbo wailed again in his frustration, and turned to stomp again back to his home. 

*I never had the chance in my life to court you properly, you know.* In front of Fili, Bilbo ignored him. 

*I wasn’t allowed to do so either or do you really think that I would have not done so as soon as I saw you?* These words stopped Bilbo dead in his steps.   
He whirled around to stare wide-eyed at Fili. 

“You… you… what?” Was all the flabbergasted Hobbit could muster to squeeze out in his shock. Fili grimaced before he shrugged once more helplessly. His hands went into the pockets of his Wargfur mantle. The ghost seemingly found his boots very interesting unexpectedly, because Fili choose to stare at them intently instead to meet Bilbo’s gaze. 

*I said, I would have courted you the moment I saw you if I had been allowed to do so, what I wasn’t, Bilbo.* 

“Huh?” 

Fili scowled and meet Bilbo’s gaze with his own, empty eyes. 

*I Wasn’t Permitted! I swore an oath to my uncle and to the quest as his heir by Mahal. To not let me become distracted from the quest by anything else, to give my people their rightful home back, Bilbo. That included that I was forbidden to woo even my One if I found him or her on the road there until Erebor was back secure in our hold. In addition, as much as it vexed me, I had to hold it, curse it!* 

He looked at Bilbo calmly while the Hobbit in question could only look shocked back at Fili. 

“He made you swear such a foul oath?” 

The ghost shook his head calmly. 

*It wasn’t a ‘foul oath’ Bilbo, it was a reasonable one! I couldn’t let myself become sidetracked, please try to see beyond what I said. My people hungered, driven from place to place and hunted for much too long! What else could I do for them as to stay true to our cause so that they would have a home again? I am of the house and line of Durin. I owned them that and no less as my full attention to our cause, Bilbo. Even as it did cost me much more as I would ever have believed when I swore my oath freely.* 

Fili spoke passionately back. 

In his eyes shone a fervent fire that had Bilbo reel back a step in surprise. There was despair and sadness, anger and pain from experiences etched in that look, even if it was a bit strange to see that all in the white space that now was Fili’s eyes. He sensed it all anyways in it. 

*I could do no less as to abide to that. I simply thought I would have more time! That I would survive this quest and than had enough time to put my plans in action. I should have known better as to think that fate would be kind to one of my line, Bilbo. That is the only excuse that I have for you. If I had not died that day, I would have wooed you, as you deserve it! Alas, it was never destined to be.* 

By now, Fili was pacing around in front of the upset looking Bilbo in the snow. 

*When I saw you standing there, in your door, I just knew! I couldn’t help it, I had to gaze at you the whole time that night and every other. It was all that I was allowed to do until our home was retaken. I know that I made you skittish with my stares but it was all that I had! That and when uncle finally saw a bit reason, to sleep next to you at night.* 

Fili’s voice sounded rather miserable when he told Bilbo that all. 

Bilbo, he could only shake his head at the revelations that the ghost threw at him. what had Thorin been thinking he was doing, was all Bilbo could think in those moments and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut in his own anguish when it dimmed him why Fili had often looked so intently and gloomy at the same time at him in the past. 

“This can simply not be true… it can’t.” 

His whisper was easily heard from the specter. Fili shook his head fast at the words of Bilbo. 

*Don’t blame Thorin for it, Bilbo. He was in his right to remind me on my oath when I told him that night we left your Smial when you were asleep. He never outright forbade me my wish but he did remind me to do it after the quest and he was right, in a way. What if I had failed? It was a risk too great to take.* 

He looked dejectedly down for some moments. 

*Although, what I did to you was not exactly honorable either. I forced upon you my presence after my dead I know that. However, I did not want to loose you fully. Hoped the Maker and Eru would have mercy with me and allow me to follow you, so I could try to keep you with me forever. Yes, I am selfish and not very fair to you but I will rather go over the rim of the world as to let you slip through my fingers yet again and that for good!* 

Fili suddenly turned to the hobbit and walked fiercely up to Bilbo while the Hobbit stumbled backwards until his back hit a tree. The ghost did not stop his intend advance before he had Bilbo cornered against the tree; he even put both of his hands against the tree to trap Bilbo efficiently there with him. 

Bilbo gulped. 

For a moment Fili lifted his hand to touch him but the hand went right through Bilbo what had Fili make a desperate noise in the back of his troth seeing this and had Bilbo shudder madly. 

*Curse it! In this form, I cannot even truly touch you. I hate being a ghost, Bilbo. I wish I had somehow survived the damned battle but I didn’t. You may run home now from me, Bilbo, but know that I will search you out in the first second of the days of the dead surely! Once I have that lend body, you and I will have a long overdue talk, my Hobbit. Be certain of that! Do not entertain the thought that those wards given to you have any power over my brother or me in the end. They are worthless against us since we are not truly of the houseless, but allowed to linger here by our Maker. Elrond and co forgot to take that little tidbit into consideration, my dear beloved. Trust me in that.* 

With those ominous words spoken, Fili vanished from Bilbo’s sight completely that late evening .He staid absent from any view for the rest of the time until the days of the dead. 

Where his hands had rested against the tree, the wood now looked scorched and blackened from his touch as if he could not completely reign in his temper in the last moments. The sight was taken in by a hollow feeling Bilbo who could do nothing else as to stay leaned against the tree for long minutes. Silently crying all the time it took him to find his feet and force them to walk him back home. 

When Bilbo finally came back to his home much, much later that night, he was feeling numb and simply waved off the concerned Dwarves and went straight to bed. 

He did not even bother with it that night to wash up or slip out of more than his coat that night. Bilbo curled up under his blankets until he fell into a fitful sleep with disturbing dreams. At least, this time he could not remember the most of them when he awoke, what was a small blessing for the poor Hobbit.   
Outside the snow fell softly to the ground the entire rest of the week. 

When the first of the days finally arrived, Bilbo was a mental mess and Bofur looked not much better.   
Point midnight the sound of two pairs of boots hitting the harsh snow told them all three that the brothers had arrived. 

Bilbo could only stare helplessly when the ward on the door went up in flames before the door flew open and Kili strode in. closely followed from his brother who turned and closed it firmly behind the duo again. He even locked it to ensure that no one came in after them.   
What confused Bilbo slightly to be honest? 

The question was answered shortly after when the voice of something clearly not human screeched right outside his door in the night. Sheer terror had Bilbo jump up in fright and running into his room at his top speed. 

This was simply too much for him! 

What the hell was outside his Smial? 

He hid, like a fauntling in his bed from the monster. Soon after, he heard someone step into his room and sit down next to him on the mattress. 

“It is gone now, Bilbo. Sorry for that. That beast of a houseless was trying to follow us in so it could possess one of your bodies. We chased it away. Stupid elf fea! That one should really go and let Mandos collect his fea already, he lingers here for far too long. From what I could gather, he fears the wrath of the Valar rightfully. Being a former Kinslayer and such from the first age. But enough of that. He will no longer bother the Hobbits or you, I promise!”   
Fili could only watch the shaking lump under the blankets in the bed with sorrow. He had not meant to scare Bilbo that badly. 

Now, back into a body, and if only a temporally one, he could think more clearly again. It was a hard thing to do when being only a spirit. Somehow, all what made you, you, vanished in a way that one could not explain. All restrictions for example vanished once you left your body behind. Only the soul remained. You could no longer really feel, smell, see or touch something when being dead. 

Only memories of such staid with the soul. 

He had missed these feelings! Badly so and Kili had too felt the loss of them all keenly. Both had long conversations about this when they had followed their One’s here. He gave into his longtime wish that Fili had since his dead with a sigh and gathered Bilbo’s shivering form up into his arms easily and carefully. He knew that the Hobbit hiding under his blanket still was shaken and did not want him to but could not help himself here. 

Moving to the headboard to lean against it, Fili let content rumble escape him when he felt the familiar weight of Bilbo finally settle in his hold. 

He was still trembling but Fili ignored that and set to pet Bilbo’s back soothingly instead. 

Bilbo could not even fathom what was running through Fili’s mind right now. 

He could smell the scent of the Dwarf in his nostrils, feel his body next to his but there was an odd edge to everything of what Bilbo could feel and sense. All felt…wrong. The smell was the same as before, yet, there was the faint smell of decay somehow clinging to it. The body felt solid, too solid and he could tell that it was heavier too since it seems to make his mattress dip in more as a normal body should have done it. He was scared out of his wits to be honest. 

Crying softly and shaking Bilbo squeezed his eyes shut so hard that bright stars seem to dance before his closed lids. 

All Bilbo wanted was Fili gone from his home so he could find some resemblance of peace back in his life. A futile wish, he knew that. As the night wore on, Bilbo listened to the sounds of Bifur walking around in his Smial and the telltale sounds of Bofur and Kili making love in the guestroom. Muted as the sounds were, Bilbo could still make them out in the soundless night. 

Fili never ceased his soothing petting of Bilbo through the blanked that the Hobbit still clutched around him like a shield. 

He did not speak, just sat there and held him all the hours it took for Bilbo to finally fall into an exhausted, fitful sleep.   
When Bilbo awoke again, it was clearly midmorning and the rest of the Smial was eerily quite. No sound reached his ears beyond the fine breathing noises that Fili made. He still had Bilbo in his arms. Resignation washed over the Hobbit. 

“Let me up, I need to make breakfast.” It was Bilbo’s turn today and he intended to keep at least some resemblance of normalcy or else, he would go insane Bilbo was sure. Above him, Fili tensed for a moment. Then, suddenly the arms tightened around Bilbo more.   
“There is no need for you to make breakfast, Bilbo.” 

Confusion surged through the poor scared Hobbit at the words. 

“Pardon me? It is my turn to make it today for Bofur, Bifur and me and I do not skirt my duties, Fili Durin. Not even with having two Ghosts turned flesh invading my formerly peaceful home!” He managed it to squirm out of his blanked shield enough to give the blond a glare.   
The look that Fili held in his eyes however, threw Bilbo off and he begun anew to shake. This time thought not with fear for himself but for the others in his home. Fili’s gaze held a strange definiteness in his eyes that made Bilbo blanch nearly to the shade of his blanket while he clutched to the ends of it with white knuckles. 

The Dwarf breathed calmly on while he simply kept looking at Bilbo. 

Fili had known that this was coming. Had known that it would break Bilbo’s spirit most likely completely yet, he felt no remorse for having sidetracked the Hobbit from what truly was happening with his presence last night. 

Bilbo did not know that with Bofur giving in into Kili last night that the Dwarf had cast his life away too. The miner was long dead before Bilbo had awoken again. Was gone with his brothers’ ghost to the halls of their maker already before the first light had spilled through the window of Bilbo’s bedroom.   
Bifur had left the Smial in the first light with his cousins body wrapped into fine blankets and furs and strapped onto a sleet that the older miner and toymaker had build when Bilbo wasn’t looking. The older Dwarf was already on his way to bring Bofur’s shell to the Blue Mountains to have it stored there until he would make his way back to Erebor in spring. 

The body of his brothers mate would not decay like human bodies would have done. It had turned to a stone like state and would stay like that until Bifur reached Erebor to have him buried there in Kili’s tomb, next to his mate. Bofur was about to be buried with the honor a Prince consort that he deserved.   
Dain would make certain of that. 

Bifur would also keep an eye on the Smial of Bilbo. He had given Kili and Fili a piece of his mind before he went away with the body and before Kili had left his borrowed shell behind to follow his mate to the halls. 

“The only living being in this place is you, Bilbo. Bofur has already left with Kili. Bifur is bringing his body to the blue mountains as we speak.”   
The expected outbreak at his words from Bilbo came with a ferocity that even Fili had not expected. 

For a moment, the Hobbit had stilled completely than he had reacted. He had hit, kicked and screamed at Fili in a way that the Dwarf had never witnessed it before. Bilbo did not seem to realize it when his balled fists split open the skin when he hit Fili’s lend body with them and neither did he seem to realize it that he slowly screamed himself hoarse. 

Fili had not wanted to inflict this pain on Bilbo. 

He simply had no choice. Kili had not wanted to wait any longer, as he needed to. Fili could understand this actually far better as anyone else. His brother had missed Bofur badly and had seen his mates suffering of his loss with sad eyes all the time of their wait for the days of the death.   
It wasn’t as if Kili now hated Bilbo, actually he understood Bilbo far better as the Hobbit would have ever believed him to do. Still, Kili was a Dwarf and as such he had reacted and that was that. 

When Bilbo finally lost his conscious Fili carefully eased him onto the bed and begun with the task to bandage Bilbo’s injuries up. Even not aware, Bilbo still wept silently. It tore another hole into Fili’s soul to see Bilbo suffer so much but he could change nothing right now. He was fully aware of it that Bilbo must now hate him and more so, Kili like nothing else in the world and beyond but it did not matter anything to Fili. 

Unlike Kili, he could not simply go and take Bilbo’s soul with him while making love to the Hobbit. 

Bilbo had never truly agreed to Fili’s courting. Only to wear the necklace that marked him as Fili’s intended. They had never consummated the courting rites and neither had the Hobbit known what Filis' necklace meant to Dwarrow’s. Mahal had made it clear to Fili that he needed Bilbo’s consent to take him with him to his halls. 

Sighing, Fili rose to make Bilbo a light breakfast. 

He knew that he would have to force his love to eat it in the end. Bilbo was too deep in his anger and mourning to take anything from Fili in the future without a fight. With another weary sigh, Fili left the room. On his way to the kitchen, Fili came across the room that Bifur and Bofur had occupied. The bed was neatly made and everything was cleaned up. Bifur had done it, no doubt to spare Bilbo from having to do it.   
He closed the door to it silently and walked on. 

Fili had made a deal with his maker and his makers wife. 

The body he wore like cloth was nearly impossible to destroy. It would last him for a long while to come and not only for the seven days. He was to stay here until Bilbo’s time was over and his task in the history of middle earth was finally done. Then and only then, Fili could try to take the Hobbits soul back with him to the halls of his ancestors to rest there until the remaking of Arda and beyond. 

If Bilbo did agree freely to it and let Fili court and consume the courtship with Bilbo, that was. 

The ring. 

Bilbo’s accursed magical ring was the key here as to why that deal had been struck and Fili had to wait for far longer as he had originally planned it. Was the very point why Bilbo was still untouched from the ghost in the shell and why Fili had not dragged Bilbo’s soul with him to the halls of his forefathers to sit next to him there to wait for the remaking of the world. 

Fili could never again in this world be a prince of the house of Durin. 

Oh, he still was it and would be a king in the next remaking of Arda for sure, his reward for his loyalty in his former life, but to the Dwarrow’s in the current Arda marred; Fili was a deceased walking the world of the living. His part of their history was over and done. Dain and his closest advisors and a few of the company would know that he was here but no one else. 

Dain and his line would now rule the folk of Durin until Durin the Deathless would be reborn for the last time. 

Bilbo had still to play a great part in the design on Eru and as such, he had needed a guard, a sentinel to watch over him and the ring until the time to destroy the accursed thing came. The Hobbit was the elected keeper of that confounded piece of metal and dark magic by the Vala until that time came. 

And Fili? 

He was the appointed guardian from the Vala for Bilbo until then. 

It was partly to give Fili the chance to change Bilbo’s mind and partly to keep his soul from straying the halls to haunt Bilbo. Who would need his strength to fight off the influence of the ring in the years to come. Fili had no illusions about it that Bilbo would not like the situation at all. 

Bilbo, Fili knew, would fight him on every step on the way. Most likely, he would snap at first when he learned about it that Fili would not leave him again after the seven days went by. One part of Fili wept at the realization of having to hurt Bilbo even more. Another, darker part of him rejoiced at the thought to stay with Bilbo even if that meant that his Hobbit would mentally shatter before it would get better. 

It would ruin Bilbo forever for any other that could have gotten the Hobbit’s heard instead of Fili. 

The Vala were cruel when it came down to what they wanted done and with placing Fili permanently in Bilbo’s life, they had ruined any chance for Bilbo to have a life with someone else. Had destroyed his ability to become a normal Hobbit like the many others in the shire again. He mused that the ring, needing a keeper, had been Gandalf’s true reason to take Bilbo from his peaceful home in the first place. 

Because, Hobbit’s seems to have a natural immunity to the evilness that was the true nature of that thing. 

The Dwarf wasn’t a cruel soul. He did not relish in it to cause Bilbo pain and suffering but he could simply not help himself here. Could not risk to loose Bilbo to another, not after what he had done to ensure it that his soul could keep Bilbo’s for eternity. So he had agreed to the devils deal with the Vala and if only to keep Bilbo all to himself. Fili would tolerate no one else in Bilbo’s life that could challenge his claim on the Hobbit’s soul and love and devotion if Fili could manage it to secure that with time. At this point of all, Fili would have been content to try for that in their next life in favor to drag Bilbo out of this one with him. 

Bilbo belonged to Fili in his line of thoughts and the Dwarf would make certain that Bilbo and everyone else would know that too, if necessary with force.   
All consequences be damned! 

It went from there like that. 

When Bilbo awoke, again he frantically searched his hole up and down at first for Bofur and Bifur. Finding Fili’s words to be the truth, the Hobbit literally fell apart. In the next days, he did barely eat or drink and recoiled every time Fili tried to come near him so violently that Fili let him mostly be.   
He used that ruthlessly to his advantage to keep Bilbo eating at least. 

Moreover, when Bilbo finally collapsed of sheer exhaustion, Fili was the one that brought the comatose Hobbit into his bed. For the entire weeks that followed Fili never went away from Bilbo for more as a few steps. He was always near Bilbo. If the Hobbit wanted it or not. He calmly rode out the rants and crying fits and once he told Bilbo about it that, he would stay with him and that he was bound to him until Bilbo’s dying day, Fili stoically endured Bilbo throwing everything in reach at him. 

Once the hobbit tried to remove the necklace from his neck. 

Only to have the Dwarf suddenly threaten him bodily with instant death if he did do so. Fili needed hours to explain it to Bilbo that even being now his protector, doing such would trigger his vengeance since he had sworn it to Fili that he would wear it until his last day. 

Bilbo never again tried to remove it but from that day onward, he ignored the Dwarf completely. 

He stopped to speak and to look at Fili. He did not respond to any questions and neither did Bilbo acknowledged Fili touching him. It was as if Fili didn’t exist for Bilbo. He made his meals silently in Hobbit sized portions and ate in utter silence with his back preferable to Fili or staring off and through the Dwarf prince if Fili dared it to sit down in Bilbo’s line of view. 

He ignored the Dwarf when he was in the same room with him and often simply sat in his fathers chair and stared out of a window sightlessly.   
It was Hamfast who finally went to the Smial to look after Bilbo and so met Fili one day there. From there on the kind gardener did buy Bilbo’s groceries for them. One time the Major came to look at the strange Dwarf that had made himself at home in Bilbo’s Smial. However, upon meeting the up to the neck armed Dwarf, the poor Hobbit recoiled rather fast. 

It took Fili full two years to get Bilbo to respond to his presence again. 

Two times the seven days of the death came and went with almost to no reaction from Bilbo. In all those years, the Dwarf was the silent shadow of the Hobbit. Took care of the broken shell of Bilbo while the Hobbit did not seem to acknowledge his presence the slightest. He was like a child on some of the days and usually weeping. 

Or babbling to himself or simply staring off into the distance. 

The other Hobbit’s soon begun to ignore the odd pair living in Back shot row. Fili became somewhat of an ignored shadow of Mad Baggins with the ongoing years. Some of the lasses even made eyes at the tall and seemingly to Bilbo only devoted warrior Dwarf what he fully ignored.   
Soon, that was noted from the woman folk and he was left alone. 

Then, on one spring morning in the third year, Bilbo suddenly asked Fili why he did not leave him alone. As if a dam had broken, he pleaded cried and screamed at the Dwarf to leave him be. It broke Fili’s heard to hear this but the Dwarf did not wafer and staid firm. Repeatedly he tried to explain it to Bilbo why he was here and that he would not leave Bilbo again before his fate on Arda had happened and that Fili, even if Bilbo did not believe him that now, truly did love the Hobbit. 

After that night, Bilbo still did not talk much to him but he begun at least to give answers when Fili asked him something. But those answers came out in a voice that was muted and without any emotion. His formerly sparkling eyes, empty now and Bilbo looked hollow to Fili when the Dwarf talked to him. 

Bilbo’s last shred of willpower was broken and Fili knew it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope my first attempt on Darker fiction was liked^^ Suryallee


End file.
